I would like to announce our ferret web page at
"http://www.astro.umd.edu/~wls/ferrets.html".  See also our photo gallery at
"http://www.astro.umd.edu/~wls/images/".  The ferret page starts with a
description of of our ferrets.  I would like to include the text of that
description here.  Some of this information is old, but some has not yet
been posted.  I have not before announced Jasmine who we acquired in
October.  I previously announced Bridgett, a ferret we rescued last April.
I can announce that she *finally* was accepted by the other ferrets.  This
took 7 months.  I think this goes to show that even if the other ferrets do
not accept your new ferret for quite a long time, don't give up --- there is
still hope.
 
BEGIN EXCERPT
We now have 5 ferrets.  Ben and Jerry, our first ferrets, came into our
lives in January, 1990.  They were two little silver-mitt kits.  The pet
store had booths for people to interact with prospective pets.  Clare fell
in love with Ben when Ben tugged on the bows of Clare's shoes.  We wanted
two ferrets to keep each other company.  I picked Jerry, who had been Ben's
cage-mate at the pet store, so that the pair could remain together.  We were
told that Ben and Jerry were litter-mates.  We had already decided on the
names Ben & Jerry but then discovered that the two new ferrets were girls.
We were set on those names and kept them anyway.  We then needed to decide
which ferret would be "Ben" and which "Jerry".  I decided that the ferret
Clare chose would be "Ben" because she has a dark black nose and the words
"Black" and "Ben" both begin with a "B".
 
Ben and Jerry were our only ferrets for four years.  Around Valentine's Day,
1994, we decided to add another little kit to our family.  We met Buttercup,
a pretty little chocolate sable kit, in another pet store.  She could fit
easily in the palm of my hand.  She would rest in my winter coat pocket,
where she would gnaw on my little finger.  Needless to say, we fell in love
with her too.  We definitely wanted a feminine name for the new ferret and
the name of a flower suggested itself.  "Snapdragon" was considered and
rejected -- we did not want a self-fulfilling prophesy.  We settled on the
name "Buttercup".  For the first year she was mostly called "Baby".  Ben &
Jerry accepted her surprisingly well, considering what a pest she was to
them.  This was especially surprising in retrospect considering what
difficulty we later had in getting the older three to accept Bridgett.
Buttercup is the most petite of our ferrets.
 
The fourth ferret was a rescue ferret.  One of our neighbors is an insurance
adjuster.  One day in April, 1995, while at the home of one of her clients,
she saw a ferret in a cat carrier in the basement.  It had been given to one
of the children of the family and was now unwanted.  Our neighbor told the
woman there that she knew of someone who might find a home for the ferret.
Thus Bridgett came into our lives.  She is a sable ferret, lighter in color
and larger than Buttercup.  Bridgett came to us in a cat carrier (which they
wanted back) filled with cedar chips.  Her possessions were a bag of cedar
chips, a can of "Sun-Seed" ferret food, a piece of an old shirt and a small
plastic dish.  We were told that she was "less than a year old".  The cedar
chips went immediately into the compost pile.  She was so thin that I could
easily feel her ribs.  That is now no longer true.  Her spirit was so
stunted by neglect that she didn't know how to play.  She would just stare
at a dangling toy and not know what to do.  She also had a bad biting
problem: she would bite "hard".  I trained her to moderate her biting in the
first week.  However, the hard part was yet to come.  The other ferrets
decided that they didn't like her.  She, for her part, did not have any
social skills with other ferrets.  She would react to the other ferrets by
staring at them.  It took about 7 months (and a lot of work) until she was
accepted by them.  For the most part, Bridgett would run from them to a tube
and then defend herself by biting at the other ferret's face.  If she
couldn't reach the face she did not know what to do.  Buttercup could push
her away by backing up into her.
 
We got Jasmine in October, 1995, at the same pet shop Buttercup came from.
We were hoping that a younger ferret would be a friend and companion for
Bridgett.  Jasmine had arrived at the pet shop in late July.  By October she
was already four months old.  She is a dark-eyed white with a sprinkling of
dark guard hairs down her back and sides.  She is our biggest ferret,
weighing in at 2.2 pounds.  The name "Jasmine", continues the flower theme:
a white flower that "smells nice".  The reaction of the older three to the
newcomer was at least neutral rather than hostile.  She would zoom around
them before they would react.  To our surprise and disappointment, the main
hostility came from Bridgett.  Bridgett, the ferret who did not know how to
fight, now instantly discovered how to bite and shake Jasmine's neck.
However, the coming of the newcomer brought peace to the house in an
unexpected manner.  Now Bridgett was not the newest ferret.  The older three
now tolerated her more, and the older three were now occasionally spotted
sleeping with Bridgett.  The older three also seemed to get along reasonably
well with Jasmine and they were also occasionally spotted sleeping with her.
By November, Bridgett seemed to be dropping her hostility to Jasmine and now
occasionally would sleep with her.  Bridgett would still chase Jasmine, but
now some of it seemed like play.  Jasmine is a big ferret and is quite
capable of taking care of herself.
 
By December, all five ferrets were able to live together in one cage.
Jasmine and Bridgett accompanied us to Ohio for Christmas.  They shared a
small cage for several days and were inseparable companions.  Six-year-old
Ben still maintains her "alpha" status in the "pack".
---
Bill & Clare Sebok
[Posted in FML issue 1461]