Hello one and all!
 
Please forgive me if this suggestion has already been made...but one way to
encourage a boistrous ferret to unclench its jaws is to place a finger over
said ferret's nose.
 
This method does require some presence of mind--especially if the ferret has
closed its eyes, wrinkled its nose, dug those little nippers in and begun
wrenching its head around.  The ferret will gradually loosen its grip when
it can't breathe; this is your cue to withdraw easily, gently, and above
all--quickly.  Sometimes this window of opportunity is rather brief since
the ferret may come up for air and immediately head back for a second
round--but this typically happens only with ferrets that are slow to refine
their social skills (due to neglect, improper training, and/or abuse).
 
The finger-over-the-nose treatment will not go far towards training a
ferret not to nip; it is, however, an effective way to get them to let go
without hurting them.  Consistently gentle handling with Bitter-Apple
flavored hands will (in most cases) teach the ferret not to nip. By the way,
many lotions and creams have lanolin or perfumes in them that ferrets like
the smell of, and sometimes they can get a bit carried away...
 
Mary Van Dahm at the FAIR shelter in Westchester IL is an expert at handling
"delinquent" ferrets; in the past weeks she has been socializing two very
young and VERY rambunctious jills that were dumped in a box next to a
highway.  They were picked up by two good Samaritans who weren't sure what
these little critters were but suspected they shouldn't be playing in
traffic.  These kind people (who happened to be wearing nice thick gloves)
were able to save two of the six kits.  We named them Daisy and Clover--they
were probably never handled before and are pretty much jet-propelled most of
the day, but can be picked up now without shelter volunteers having to
lather up first with Bitter-Apple.
 
All this to say that you needn't resort to nose-flicking as a deterrent.  I
think the jaw-popping suggestion is interesting but I wonder whether it
might not be a little risky since it involves applying pressure to jaw
hinges.  Considering the rather small size of ferret heads and the strength
of human hands when the adrenalin is flowing it seems to me that it would be
easy to do some damage to the ferret, but I haven't tried it and I may be
worrying for nothing.  (I should add that I am perhaps overly sensitive to
jaw problems since I've been dealing with TMJ ever since my second year in
grad school when I nipped an assistant professor and had my jaws popped by a
couple of tenured thugs--all due to improper treatment and abuse of course.)
 
Best wishes,
 
Anatole
Mookie, Maia, Sabrina, and Poppy
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[Posted in FML issue 1773]