Jen,
Go out and get plexie glass or fine hardware cloth and put it down where
the ferrets are digging.  Provide a couple of covered digging boxes for
them.  Do not punish ferrets for digging or jumping on furniture.  They
are just being ferrets and acting the way a ferret acts.  Ferrets were
bred in outdoor cages for thousand of years to hunt and to, "ferret out"
rabbits; to investagate/dig at the rabbits holes, and to not give up
until the task was completed.  The smell of an unfixed and fully scented
ferret kept them outside as a working animal only.  Very recent history
has seen fixed/descented ferrets brought indoors and called pets.  Some
ferrets have retained more of this instinctive behaivor/memory than
others.  As you have discovered in the home, this behavior can translate
to a highly destructive animal.  Remember they cannot be trained like
a dog or cat, and keep in mind that they have neither good nor bad
behaviors; just typical ferret behavior.  This is why many ferrets end up
either in shelters or worse, abandoned or abused.  People see only the
cute fuzzy in the pet store and have no idea what they have brought home.
As a ferret becomes more destructive to the house, their time and space
out of the cage becomes more and more limited.  Until the ferret is no
longer let out at all because it creates too much havoc to let it out
any more.
 
Educate yourself on ferret behavior and ferret proofing.  More
importantly accept that if you are going to have ferrets, you and your
boyfriend must completely rearrange your life around them.  Punishing
ferrets by prolonged caging is cruel and does nothing to solve the
problem, as you have realized.  Ferrets need and must have at least a
couple hours of daily out of the cage interactive exercise/play time.
 
If it were me, I would gladly kiss my security/pet deposit good-bye and
chalk it up to the high cost of ferret care, before I would "time out"
my ferrets for normal (typical) ferret behavior.  In reality, I had the
majority of my carpet replaced by wood laminate; it cost a lot more than
a deposit.  One ferret still digs at it, trying to tunnel in and get the
"rabbit" he thinks is living under the microwave cart.  He never gives up
but he cannot damage it.  I understand this is not an option for you if
you rent.  You should be able to solve this problem with stepped up
ferret proofing, you have to be smarter than a ferret and keep at it.
Most of all you must accept the things you cannot change and typical
ferret behavior is one of them.
 
Please forgive me if I sound harsh, I'm really not directing this at
you personally, it's just that this pattern of increasing cage time
and decreasing play time is an all too common occurrence in regard to
ferrets.  It is due primarily to a lack of understanding of what is
normal ferret behavior.  The next time you go to "time out" your ferret
please ask yourself, "Is my ferret deliberately being bad or is my
ferret just doing what a ferret does best?  "Ferreting!"
 
Pam
[Posted in FML issue 4633]