Stinky (a temporary name that stuck) has so far not had a poop accident on
the carpet, due to being confined either to her cage or to the linoleum when
she hasn't gone recently but I wonder if she pees.  Do frrts often pee
without pooping?  What has me suspecting is that I often see her back into a
corner in her cage and nothing seems to come out, but maybe she is peeing
and if so, how can I be sure it's not happening under the futon as well?  I
know I'll have to wash the carpets when I move, but I would like to minimize
the damage...
 
She has a 3 level cage and was using the second level as a bathroom, so I
carpeted the ramp to the bottom level, making it easier for her to see/use
and I put linoleum on the second level, so she now only uses the bottom
level as a toilet.  The bottom level is wire and the whole cage rests in a
metal tray.  She seems mostly inclined to ignore the corner litter box and
just let the mess fall through the wire to the corncob below.  This is fine
with me, so I was thinking of removing the litter box entirely.  Is this a
bad idea?  My other thought was to just lay down some papertowel over the
wire on the bathroom end to make clean up easier since lots of the poop ends
up sticking (yuck) to the wire or not falling through, but I thought maybe
she would just think I was offering her new bedding!  What's best for a
frrt?
 
BTW: Stinky is only about 9 weeks old, my first frrt in about 10 years.
She's mostly white with some grey shading and black eyes and she's very
playful and gentle and totally lovable!
 
How many people let their frrt run loose all or most of the time?  My first
frrt did not have a cage (I didn't know frrts *could* live in a cage!) and
was always loose in my bedroom (where I spent most of my time since I lived
with my parents) and there were good points and bad...I loved the fact that
he could be free to sleep with me and interact with me as he wished, but I
hated the newspaper in every corner of the room and the general chaos and
destruction.  Now that I am renting, I have to minimize the destruction,
plus I have other pets who could hurt or be hurt by an unsupervised frrt.
So I'm just curious how others handle the amount of freedom given their
frrts.  I suppose once I own a place I can arrange for more frrt-friendly
home modifications, but there's only so much I can do in a place I rent, so
hints are welcome!
[Posted in FML issue 1593]