Hello All - Well, we have had a nice visit for the last couple of weeks with
Bob's Carbone and Tui.  Carbone is from moi - Chaotic Ferrets and is a half
German/American black sable.  No, we don't know which half is German!.  Tui
is Welsh, New Zealand and Polecat and I would classify him as a cinnamon.
 
As those many of you here on the FML know from your own visits with Bob - I
understand someone named him God, but I just call Him Bob which is Bob
spelled backwards - his time frames of arrivals and departures do not relate
to anything in particular.  So, I knew from his schedule and past experience
that there was probably a 3-4 day variation of when he might arrive, and
that this arrival might be in the middle of the night.  I just let him know
the kitchen door would be unlocked and where the guest bedroom was.  Since
he had appointments at the Smikthsonian on Monday before last, I knew it
would be shortly before that.  He called in the wee hours after driving
near around the clock in bad weather and still 4-5 hours away.  He sounded
exhausted and made a good call on hitting a motel for some snooze time (I
understand they will send him a bill for the hit damage later :)
 
He was supposed to come in early in the a.m. but arrived late and was thus
in a hurry to get to the Smithsonian.  He slowed while passing my house to
about 35 miles an hour and tossed Tui and Carbone in my direction.  Actually
we had a brief visit and he then went to the museum and looked at bones
until quite late.  He was supposed to spend the night - darn him - but he
hit the road again to gain about 500 miles South before he crashed.
Fortunately, he did not, and did have good visits down the road.
 
Now let me tell you about Carbone and Tui!  To see them is to make anyone a
believer of his diet for ferrets research and plan.  They are magnificent.
And not just because Carbone came from here in the first place (and my hobs
do get really big) but these guys are a picture of what all ferrets should
be.  Large, sturdy boned, well muscled and beautiful animals.  Carbone
around 6 pounds and Tui, who is younger, probably near 4 pounds.  Both have
a wonderful disposition and fit right in and were accepted by my over-active
crew right away.
 
The boys had lovely young ladies waiting for them, but neither were in (rut)
when they got here.  Bob said that Carbone was....somewhere on the road he
changed his mind.  Well, next time.  Carbone and Tui, however, proceeded to
have a wonderful time here.  Carbone was a worry at first though.  I think
he missed Bob because I could not get him to eat much of anything.  Now, my
crew gets chicken, turkey, meat, etc. once a day (if they are lucky) and
are weaned on the real stuff along with Totally Ferret and a couple of
others in the mix.  Bob's ferrets have a main diet of fowl, meat, bones,
etc. and, ugh, yuck......mice.  Yes, folks, they realy do eat mice.  On the
fourth day of the visit, worried about two-ton Carbone starving for Bob, I
went to the mouse store and bought some mice.
 
I am not going to elaborate too much here.  Let's just say that the real
mouse for food certainly perked Carbone up; and to my surprise and a little
bit of horror - I found that most all of my ferrets eat mice too.  Only a
few of the oldtimers were not interested.  So, I had to go back to the
store the next day to get more mice.  I suddenly had a house full of mouse
demanding monsters who preferred that to a nice big plate of cooked chicken
with cracked bones and marrow!  Well, two weeks have passed now and I have
gotten a bit used to it.  And mice do come frozen.  The pet stores do this,
I think for the faint of heart.  The third day I showed up for more mice,
the check-out gal said "Just how many snakes do you have anyway?" I replied
"No one knows for certain - they move to fast to count."  Talk about odd
looks :)  However, the vets here think that is what they should be
eating.......
 
Carbone is like a big lovey and huggy bear.  He loves to lie on his back and
have his tummy scractched and under his chin.  Tui will go to sleep in your
arms like a baby, all of this, of course, is after a hard play.  The young
girls here made nitwits of themselves over the two stud muffins and so the
boys had plenty of play companions.  Also, some young hobs "took them on"
with rough play.  My mature hobs, except for one, accepted them into the
family.  And they particularly liked playing with the litter of all black
sable German girls......all of the ferrets love the young ones.
 
Carbone discovered that I keep house plants.  Big house plants on the floor
in the living room.  Lots of big house plants.  Lots of big pots.  Lots of
dirt.  Lots of dirt now not in pots and in vaccum cleaner.  Not as much dirt
after first time, because I became more alert to his addiction.  Man, that
ferret can dig out a plant faster then any I have seen before!  Well, anyone
who tries to keep plants and ferrets deserves to have dirt dug out.  Carbone
spent the majority of his visit trying to get to the plants.  I spent a lot
of time preventing him from his goal.
 
I have a large clear tube snaking around under the bed.  A favorite toy
which the jills especially like because they can run through and often the
hobs cannot because of size.  Now comes Carbone and Tui.  Wherever the girl
or girls stopped in the tube, they just simply bit a hole in it and dug it
out.  Now I have a snaking coiled wired with bits of plastic attached.  Will
have to get another one soon.
 
Well, the base of the bottom drawer in the old oak chest finally gave up
and fell out under the combined weight of my guys plus Carbone and Tui too.
I gave up using the drawers in the chest years ago and gave it to the
ferrets -- one of their favorite sleeping places.  Think I will just leave
the bottom out - drawer still pushes in, and will make cleaning easier.  So
bedding on floor under and in second drawer and top smaller drawers.  Sigh.
 
By the beginning of the second week, it was clear that Tui thought he was
going top stay for good and he started asserting himself and becoming more
dominant.  This sort of worked because he is big, but my guys are kinda
tough too.  However, this led to some entertaining forays in ferret
politics.
 
(To be continued tomorrow - more adventures & Bob returns).......Meg
[Posted in FML issue 2411]