This is Susie Lee at the Ferret & Dove Sanctuary, Inc. in Pensacola,
Florida. We recently took in six more ferrets, two were military-family
surrenders fromthe family in the Air Force being transferred overseas
that couldn't take any pets. And the other four, just this evening
were from local Animal Control police who were alerted to the ferrets
left in a condominium (two counties away from where we are)that had
just themselves and their food-less dirty cage and not a stich of
anything else. For all that, they must have not been made to be hungry
for more than a day, which is still deplorable, because it was the
cleaning-persons who found them in the empty condo and called the cops.

So, now, on to the cages...Just before we started the lastest series of
intaken ferret cage setups, we were re-evaluating what might we need to
do to make the ferrets safer if, for instance, there were a fire and we
had to get everyone out quickly. So that something like this is and
would be a HUGE concern whether you had one ferret OR sixty-one. Nearly
all the cages in the two main ferrets' rooms (formerly two bedrooms
with a connecting bathroom) except for a few small single-cages atop
some of the double-sized ones are on caster-wheels or rollers and can
be rolled out of the doors faily quickly on our terrazo floors. Those
two which are still just sitting on old milk-cartons and not on rollers
have carriers on top of them for their ready emergency-exit strategy
and also those two cages contain ferrets which are friendly with other
ferrets so that in a genuine emergency-type pinch, i can double them
up in the rolling cages. Only one cage has rollers but is too wide to
roll through a regular house-sized door. It's 4 feet by 5 feet with
two large drop-down doors and has five ferrets in it. This means it's
a two-carrier cage because being unable to roll it out the door means
that it's being on rollers in the first place makes it WORTHLESS in
any genuine emergency such as a fire or the loss of a roof or
what-have-you. I measured the gosh-doggoned thing and it's actually
even too wide to get through the glass sliding doors by about 6 inches
on it's "narrowest" side. The single and double-sized ferret nation
cages do not present this problem...they roll through the houses'
interior doors easily at need. Actually no other cages present this
problem. If (when?) we get any kind of cage large enough for these five
ferrets that are in the TOO-big cage, such as another double sized
Ferret nation cage, then the too-big-for-the-door cage is getting
disassembled for use ONLY outdoors(might be re-worked for an aviary).

In any given emergency you want to keep carriers with your cages and if
possible keep your cages "through-the-door-able". For the ferrets'
safety. So it's something to consider and keep in mind.

http://ferretanddovesanctuary.petfinder.com

[Posted in FML 5964]