>Subject: zen's prattle
>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 can't help myself.) DUH!  We're not talking about a healthy ferret zen,
we're talking about a ferret who's now dead.
 
>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.
 
As someone who's successfully nursed a litter of baby MICE ..... I find
that baby ferrets aren't all that difficult to feed and it's certainly not
impossible.
 
>Perhaps the kits you took in weren't actually just a day old or I
>misunderstood what you meant.
 
The baby ferrets were actually just a day old and you understood perfectly
what I meant.
 
>They would be smaller than your pinkie finger at that age.
 
Day old mice are about the size of the nail on your pinkie finger.
 
>They need to nurse with in hours of birth and be kept completely warm
>or they turn purple-blue and die very very quickly.
 
That's called hypothermia and occurs with ALL species. (Although rabbits
don't nurse for the first time until 24 to 48 hours.)
 
>A nipple for them to use would be something like the size of the end of a
>syringle with the sharp removed.
 
And of course a 1 cc syringe (syringle?) is an excellent choice if you
can't shave enough rubber off of the nipple.
 
>Look at any jill (spayed or not) and you can see just how small the nipples
>are.
 
And I challenge YOU to take a look at the nipples on a MOUSE.
 
>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.
 
As you're aware, I'm NOT a breeder, so being ignorant to the fact that one
wouldn't even bother trying to save a life, I always go ahead and give it
a go.
 
>Ferrets are not rabbits.
 
Well gooooooooooollly. Ya learn something new every day.
 
>Rabbits are cheap compared to ferrets.
 
Gee, in my little world all life is precious.
 
Sandi Ackerman
Best Little Rabbit, Rodent (mice are rodents too :-) and Ferret House
Seattle, WA
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[Posted in FML issue 2583]