For all those who have a ferret who eats cloth, I may have a word of hope.
Lorelei, the I'll-eat-anything-that-even-looks-like-cotton girl, has been
fabric free for 6 weeks!
 
Lorelei has always eaten anything resembling cotton, and so has spent much
of her 2 years with only cardbord boxes, straw, and a nylon hammock.
Periodically, I give her an old T-shirt or sweatshirt to see if she has
reformed, and usually within a week she begins devouring it.
 
She has always been a 'rangey-looking' lady, thin and boney and with a short
coat which shows all the bones like a super-model in a clingy dress.  Her
one kit from last year however is large and heavily built like his sire, so
I intend to breed her again this year.  In an effort to fatten her up a bit
before she went into season, I began giving her about an inch of Neutri-Cal
per day.  After three weeks of this, she looked better than ever, longer
hair and an average amount of meat on her ribs.  And low and behold, she
left the T-shirt alone!  She is now housed with the rest of the jills and I
check for holes in bedding and bedding in poop every day, but she seems to
have reformed completely!
 
This makes me wonder if cloth eating is some kind of ferret eating disorder
where cloth bulk gets substituted for the protein they really need, sort of
giving them a full feeling while starving.  I would be interested to hear if
others' cloth eaters are thin and if so, could the Neutri-Cal treatment help.
 
Rob McNish, McFerret Acres
Rascal J., Wendy Weezle, Lucy, Lorelei, Lucky, and Bigfoot
[Posted in FML issue 1878]