We just received a 1.5 year old ferret to foster until there is room
at the rescue.

He was given up because the owner feared for his life. Two other
ferrets, including this guy's cage mate were killed by the family
dogs. Infact we believe he himself was attacked and injured requiring
vetrenary care. We are calling him Lucky.

He doesn't seem to be interested in the kibble food we've offered
(ZuPreem, Sheppard and Green, and 8 in 1). We've been feeding him
chicken baby food and our homemade duck soup and trying to soften
up the kibble in hopes he'll start eating it.

Does anyone know of any methods to convice ferrets that the food they
have in their dish is really food? We know that some ferrets will
imprint on one type of food and will not eat any other. We don't know
what food he was on before and we're afraid that maybe it was dog food,
but we have no way of knowing.

We have 11 ferrets of our own and we would keep Lucky safe here with
us, but 4 of our 11 ferrets don't accept new ferrets. They attack them
fairly aggessivly and we don't want to subject Lucky to any more
attacks. We tried the whole group once and he was aggressivly attacked
by one of the four, we broke it up right away, but you could see the
fear in Lucky's eyes. For now when we have playtime, we have two play
areas where the 4 and Lucky are kept separate and we rotate the other 7
between the two play areas. Does anyone have a method which will help
the four accept Lucky?

We've been able to bring in, new ferrets before, but it takes months
for them to become part of the group. During those months we spend a
lot of time protecting and breaking up fights. We try and let the
fights run their course as long as they are not too sever. We just
don't think it right to leave Lucky to fend for himself after the life
he's already had.

Thank you

Mike

[Posted in FML 6008]