Hiya!
 
To the person who was inquiring about how to introduce a new ferret to an
older one I have a few suggestions.  By far, I'm not the most experienced
person but these are the things I tried.
 
First of all, our situation was a little different.  My mother adopted
2 - 2year old females and I had an 11 month old male who had been with
*me* since he was 3 months old.  He was more then happy to see other
ferrets but the girls didn't like him at all.  We took each over to
smell each other and the one girl screamed at him and bit his ear.  It
literally scared the poop right outta him, and the pee too *L*
 
We would let them out together (all 3 ferrets) for 10 minutes here.  10
minutes there about every hour or so, supervised of course.  Then they
would be put back into their separate rooms.  Sure they screamed and
attacked but then after a few days the screaming still continued but they
didn't attack.  It was just if the male looked in their direction he'd
get an earful.  Then a few more days passed and they could stand next to
each other without a full out attack.
 
Finally we let them stay out all day long together and they just avoided
each other.  Although I did have to come to the rescue of my poor
dripping wet little boy after he got beat up.  They never drew blood.
They would eat they're treats together but not too close.  One day I
peaked into the girl's room and there was the boy sleeping in the cat
tent with one of the girls.  They still got into fights after that - some
were for fun - some were not.  As long as you can tell the difference
between the noises.  Mainly for my little boy he'd dook his head off
playing - but if it got too rough he would cry and usually that was all
it took for the girls to lay off.  Now he is really good buddies with the
one female (the one who when adopted we were told she was only able to be
bonded with the other female and no other ferrets have worked) and the
one who was supposedly friendly gets very jealous if she catches the two
in bed together *L* and she tries to drag the boy out of bed by his ears.
Also she would beat him up if she found him in her drawer.  All in all I
would have to say it took them about a month to tolerate each other and
then after then I think it was a matter of days to become buddies - but
we didn't force them to do anything together.
 
Hope this helps
 
Next
 
The card exchange was awesome :-)  Now I know what foamy fries are.  We
had to hide them in a tin because our kitten is obsessed with them.  Zama
knows he needs to hide them in places she can't get *L*  When we gave him
one - he sniffed it - looked at me - sniffed it again and then crunched
so hard on my finger I was surprised it was still there when I looked.
He ran and hid it and I missed where he hid it.  So we called him out and
gave him another and he hid that in an obvious spot so we moved it and
after moving the spot a couple of hundred times we found where he hid
the original one.  In my closet in the summer clothes bag!!  Ewe.
 
The other gifts were awesome too :-)
 
The afghan was one of the best gifts my ferret could get.  The big
blankie baby *L* I put it on the floor and I couldn't find him.  I went
to the washroom came out - it was gone - haven't seen it since but I know
he has it because I don't hear him playing with the toy I gave him for
Christmas.  It is like those balloon clowns that when you punched them
they rolled back but it is made out of plastic with small holes in it for
the ferret/cat to see the dingle ball but they can't get it out.  Well
for the past few weeks that is all I have been hearing and it is a God
send he received the blanket cause I think we were about to go crazy.
 
Thank you for everyone who sent the cards and goodies and I hope you all
have a Happy New Year.
 
Mahlyssa
[Posted in FML issue 4018]