>From:    Sandi Ackerman <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: 3-4 week old ferret babies
>I've been told off list that ferrets don't usually have their eyes open
>at 3-4 weeks of age.
 
"Almost never" would be a better description.  The "popeye look" can start
in the fourth week.  I'd be worried about a kit whose eyes opened during
the third week - it would mean something was wrong.
 
>I've only had experience bottle feeding a couple of baby ferrets and one
>of those did start opening his eyes at 3 weeks.  (The mom had died giving
>birth the day before they were brought to me.)
 
Its exceedingly hard to nurse day old kits on bottles.  We have never found
nipples small enough.  If thats what you did, congratulations.  Almost all
the breeders with decades of experience claim its more or less impossible.
Thats why we always have netwoks of breeders with backup surrogate mothers.
Most jills that die giving birth tend to take all the kits with them.
 
Perhaps the kits you took in weren't actually just a day old or I
misunderstood what you meant.  They would be smaller than your pinkie
finger at that age.  They look like nothing so much as small peeled steamed
shrimp.  They need to nurse with in hours of birth and be kept completely
warm or they turn purple-blue and die very very quickly.  A nipple for them
to use would be something like the size of the end of a syringle with the
sharp removed.  Look at any jill (spayed or not) and you can see just how
small the nipples are.  They swell but not that much for the first few
days.
 
Most breeders with decades of experience seem to think that its not until
about the third week that you should even consider hand nursing as a viable
alternative to finding a surrogate jill.
 
>I thought the gunk in her eyes was because she was ill
 
Eye infections like this actually seem related to mastitis infections in
the mother.  Usually from souring milk on the mother's teats.
 
Treat mothers with warm compresses or warm baths.  We put 2 or 3 inches of
very warm water in a tub and let mama wade around.  Softens the hardening
nipples and cleans all the grunge right off.
 
Treat kits with a opthamolic antibiotic ointment.  Works like a charm about
every time with only a few applications.  Vets can tell you more about
this.  You don't force open the eyes, just apply the ointment on the eye
whether its opened yet or not.
 
>Several years ago, when Petco began selling rabbits they did what appears
>to be a similar thing when they ordered a supply of baby rabbits from
>somewhere back east (that's where they got the best price).  The bunnies
>were shipped at about 2 1/2 weeks of age
 
Ferrets are not rabbits.  A rabbit ages more quickly over the first few
weeks than a ferret.  Actually kittens and puppies also progress much more
quickly over that span too.  Two and a half is too young for rabbits
probably but that is probably more similar to 5 weeks for ferrets (which
is also too young by most of our tastes).
 
>Their buyers don't seem to always make the best decisions about how to
>stay "profitable".
 
Rabbits are cheap compared to ferrets.  The term "breeding like rabbits" is
about the fact that rabbit litters are so big.  Pragmatically to a business
losses of rabbits are not the same as losses of ferrets.  To those that
care about them as pets it is obviously different.  Its a different
economic picture to a store.  Ferret kits are probably 5 to 10 times more
expensive than rabbits.
 
-bill
 
--
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
http://www.zenferret.com/
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[Posted in FML issue 2582]