I there I wonder if anyone can give me some advice- last month a friend
of a friend who rescued a 2 year old ferret from her neighbours who
were going to "hit it on the head" because they were moving and did
not want to take him with them. To cut along story short he ended up
with me for what was meant to be a few days until I could find a
ferret rescue to take him - but as they were all full to the brim with
unwanted Christmas babies and he was a starving, unhandled, undesexed,
dirty, flea ridden adult, i could not find anyone with room to take
him. So he ended up staying for "a few more days", then "a few days
more" while I got him desexed, and some how in a very short space of
time he has morphed into a huge, tubby, shinny house ferret now called
Big Baby who has been doing his very best to make friends with everyone
and i have become quite fond of him despite my efforts not to get too
attached to him.

The problem is I have three other ferrets, two desexed females who get
on pretty well with him and one older desexed male, Tiny who absolutely
hates him. It has been over four weeks and Tiny still screams and
hisses when ever he sees him, it does not help at all that big baby is
huge, and since his initial terror of Tiny has worn off, thinks it is
all a great game and tries to sumo wrestle Tiny out of the way when
ever he sees him. No one is getting bitten (tiny gave up biting him
last week) and big baby seems disinclined to bite, but Tiny is really
really stressed.

I have been giving Tiny lots of treats and attention while big baby is
in the room, but he is still very up set- I think that if Tiny would
stop making such a fuss big baby would probably ignore him but he just
cant stand him at all. My ferrets have free run of the house while I am
home but i am able to look them in separate rooms while I am at work,
but I really would like to have them settled.

I now that i should probably try to get a new home for big baby, but it
is so hard to find suitable homes (I am in Australia) and he has had a
really rough time and now seems so happy. Sorry to have such a rant but
this is very hard for me as i feel that I have ruined Tiny's life, does
anyone have any advice on how to deal with this- will they every get
on? is it possible to minimise tinys stress without having to keep
someone locked up all the time.

thanks
Skye

[Posted in FML 6635]