Hi,
 
I have just bought 2 ferrets(1 male, 1 female) about a month ago.  They are bot
h 10 to 11 weeks old, sable in color.  I just have a few questions to clear up
my curiosity since I do not know all that much about ferrets and have been unab
le to find a really good book about the little critters.  First of all, I know
they are young but I was wondering how long it will take them before they are t
ruly potty trained?  They have been pretty good but when they are out they (esp
ecially the female) will go to the bathroom in the corner behind a bureau on th
e other side of the room from their cage.  They will also occassionally urinate
wherever they are at that moment, and the hard part is that I am unable to catc
h them in the act and most times I will see it immediately after they do it but
 usually both of them are together so I don't know wich one was the culprit. I
would really appreciate some reassurance that this will go away or some good ad
vice on how to train them.  I confine them to one large family room at the mome
nt but I would eventually like to give them the run of the house.  to do this t
hey would have to be potty trained.
 
Secondly, I was wondering what some good treats would be since I do not want to
 give the ferrets linatone every time they do something good, I think that woul
d be too many lipid based vitamins.  I am presently trying raisins and the male
 will accept them but it is not a treat per se, and the female just spits it ou
t after we applied a little linatone to coax her to try it.
 
Finally, I was wondering at what age they would be full grown.  They seem a lit
tle small to me now.  The male is about 1.5 lbs. and the female is just shy of
a pound.
 
As far as everything else goes they got a clean bill of health from the vet, ha
ve a great deal of spunk when they play, and they sleep a whole lot, but they a
re just kids and I know I always enjoyed my half-hour nap time when I was in ki
dnergarten(I don't even know if I spelled that right).  Oh, one more question I
forgot to ask, how often should they be bathed.  The pet store said twice a wee
k which I thought was a little much, the vet said once a week but didn't seem t
oo knowledgeable about ferrets.
 
I would like to thank you all for your responses.
 
Bonnie and Clyde
 
Darrell Perkins ([log in to unmask])
 
[Posted in FML issue 0441]