This is Susie Lee with for and in the Ferret And Dove Sanctuary.

Have been horribly busy taking in (looking after) and then having to
turn down taking in yet more critters, we're now up to 62 ferrets (had
to turn away guinea pigs, nowhere to put them literally) and more than
half of them are over 6 years...and about 12 of them are over 10 years.
Squeaky Creamsable is almost 13 years old, has a huge inoperable tumor
and still content to mostly snooze and waken to eat and climb back into
his favorite two places to snooze. When he gets out, he'll snuffle
around for exactly 30 seconds and quit to lie down...to snooze.

Every ferret takes their extreme old-age, if they make it, like yours
has, differently. But nearly all of them that we've had, including the
once feisty and crustaceous Jazzmine Miss Boss who made it to just 2
weeks over her 14th year and then finally decided to not waken...they
all agree on the extra snoozing. Like growing teenagers, it seems that
the very old treasure lots of extra sleep. Unlike teens, the very old
also like lots more soup and less crunch-work-some kibble. So just let
your oldster sleep and let them have all the soup they want, three,
four, five times per day...literally as often as they might want it;
and if they forget to eat, use the kitten-feeder bottle(s) to let them
have their soup. The idea is to allow your oldsters maximum comfort
which they now want (over their 10th years) with minimum effort on
their part.

Music! (moosica-moosica)...our ferrets hear doves' coo-ing throughout
most of the day...most of the time on the other side of their walls or
through the window between one of their rooms to the doves' patio. This
is a very soothing music because we also have many neighbors with dogs
but you'd never know that's true because thanks to the doves' coo-ing,
all the neighbors' dogs are very quiet most of the time. Weekends we
like to put on the Classical arts while cleaning cages and, yes, we
have noticed most of the ferrets, the ones who can hear, all seem to
enjoy most of the same classical music that we both do. We don't care
for "crashy-bangy" noise, so we strenuously avoid heavy-metal or
anything overtly discordant. Yes to Happy-music like Bobby McFerrin
doing "Don't Worry, Be Happy" is okay, things that sound like there's
'happy-dooking" in them, somewhere, like "I Can See Clearly, Now"
(gonna be a bright, bright, sun-shiney day...DOO-dooo-doot-doot, DOO
do-doo-Dooot!) That encourages the youthful to hop and play. (it's
the music that's playing when you go here...
http://www.myspace.com/ferretanddove
But mostly peace and quiet with just the music of a chorus of living
doves all coo-ing. That's what the ferrets like, here, and they have
been proving it by sticking around as long as they possibly can, to
keep listening. 
http://ferretanddovesanctuary.petfinder.com

[Posted in FML 5994]