To all list folks who maintain free-running ferrets:

Four of my ferrets are currently free-running and have the entire
basement (the ferretarium) to themselves. My other seven are caged in
a manner that enables them to see everything that's going on. They
will have their turn soon and the four on the floor will be caged.

Yesterday I distributed large chunks of cooked chicken (59 cents a
pound) by casting the leg quarters (leg and thigh) in their feeding
dish and on the floor in a random manner. The free four discovered the
warm chicken right away and behaved in a manner expected and natural,
customary for hungry and aggressive ferrets.

In a sequential manner what happened was that the first thing the
ferret(s) did was to smell and nuzzle a chicken chunk. I call this the
*Sniff*.

The second thing was to vigorously grasp the chicken chunk between the
teeth, lift it off the floor, and look around for just the right place
to run off with it. I call this the *Snatch.*

The third thing was to run as fast as possible with a chicken chunk
mouthed and almost as big as the ferret itself, to run into a hiding
place completely out of sight. I call this the *Scoot.*

This characteristic behavior of the ferret I describe as *Sniff,
Snatch, and** Scoot.

*You may have seen this behavior pattern too. It is very important for
you to realize that the basic elements of *Sniff, Snatch, and Scoot*
can be analyzed in the three phases of a ferret attack

For example: q.v. Edward Lipinski post dated 15 Jan 2009, No.6214.

Then there's the lack of trustworthiness involving interaction between
a family pet ferret and the sudden presence of a stranger, even a child
or infant, in the home. Not more than thirty miles from here, an infant
was killed on the floor by an intact male ferret. The adult female
owner of the ferret, a cocaine addict along with her significant other,
lay abed, essentially unconscious while her ferret chewed the new born
infant's scalp to shreds.

CAUTION: Due to the graphic nature of the following discussion, you may
wish to skip the rest of this post. Edward Lipinski.

If you were to analyze the elements of this attack, you may list the
*Sniff* phase first. The killer ferret may have used his sense of smell
to home in on the human infant lying on the floor. This you may
surmise, and it appears quite logical.as the first phase.

The second phase of the attack may be more difficult to analyze,
because it appears to have overlapped the third phase. You may explain
it thusly.

The second and third phase(s) of the attack are *Snatch* and
*Scoot. *Here the two phases are difficult to separate, since they may
overlap each other.

The ferret, snatching the infant seemed to know, or perhaps it was just
a fluke, that he attempted to grasp (*Snatch*) and run off (*Scoot)*
with his new found prize. He grasped the infant by its scalp. You
already know that the scalp is some of the thinest tissue on the human
body. It is also the most richly infused circulatory area and bleeds
very profusely when the scalp tissue is lacerated.

So what we have here are repeated bites of the scalp. We have unusually
large surges of blood. We have a situation that has become more and
more difficult for the ferret to drag the infant, because the scalp has
become exceedingly slippery, is very thin, and the repeated attempts by
the ferret to purchase a firm hold on the infant is denied, due to the
scalp tissue ripping from the ferret's K9 and incisor teeth. Also, the
scalp tissue is too weak to sustain dragging the infant's body weight..

The ferret is known to have dragged the infant some distance, because
of the blood trail on the floor. So he was attempting to *Scoot* with
his prize to a hiding place.

Sad to say, but the ferret was being a ferret and doing what a ferret
normally does. And he was killed immediately upon discovery by the
police.

My assistance at the ferret's necropsy, with the vet, revealed two
facts. One, the ferret's intestines are 72 inches in length, once all
the mesentery is cut away. This is vivid in my mind, because the
intestine was draped all the way up one side and all the way down the
opposite side of a vertical placed yard stick (36 inches).

Lastly, and perhaps of paramount importance, the terminal end of the
intestine contained about 1 inch of digest in the form of a near fecal
bolus. Otherwise the intestines were empty.

Were I asked to give my opinion of this case, I would say this ferret
was starved. To me, this explains why the ferret acted normally, and
unfortunately why he was killed. Sometimes man and animal don't mix.

Remember: *Sniff, Snatch *and* Scoot* . . . absolutely normal.

Edward Lipinski

[Posted in FML 6223]