Hi All!
 
I have some comments on things that I've been reading on since I subscribed
a couple weeks ago, so here goes.  .  .
 
Furry Coats??. . . All 7 of my ferrets have furry coats, from soft, to
silk-like.  We feed them Kaytee ferret food and at night, we give them a hot
meal.  We give them each about a teaspoon or more, depends, of food with two
teaspoons of hot water and about 6 drops of linatone.  We stir it and blow
it to make it not so hot, and they attack it, though they mainly drink the
juice and only half of the food, they still enjoy this treat everynight.  We
think that the fact that they have linatone everyday, might make their coat
so soft, for I heard that an albino's coat is suppose to be coarse.  Both of
ours is soft and fluffy, all of theirs is.  That is just my opinion.  : )
 
Ear Sucking??. . . Brey, the oldest of our seven, cleans everyone's ears.
We have never had to.  We check to see how well she does it, just in case,
but are never disappointed.  She has even taught the other two females and
is in the process of teaching our newest one.  The only thing that gets us
is that she will shake the ear, then continue, the whole time her victim
laying there as still as possible.  At first they wouldn't let her, but she
holds their head down and will attack them if they disobey her.  We think
she has adopted the six as her own.
 
Crawling??. . . That reminds me of when we got Brock.  We got him later in
the day, and 5 kits had gone all day with no food because they had knocked
over the dish.  They were in like a rabbit cage, so the food fell through
the bottom of the cage and the pet store clerk wasn't doing her job.  Brock
hadn't eaten in a good 10 hours, and was very vicious about it.  When we got
him home, we gave him all the food he could eat, and he did.  He gorged
himself to the point that when he walked, he couldn't pick up his belly, so
he crawled everywhere.  This went on a good month.  He finally realized that
the food would always be there and he did eventually begin to walk.
 
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this because I have only been here a
couple of weeks, but the movie The Ewok Adventure has a ferret in it.  I
think it is right after the boy gets better or after that.  Compared to the
little girl holdong him, he looked huge, but that was when we were comparing
him to our 10 week old.  : )
 
Hyper Silver Mitts??. . . Our Belle is a silver mitt and she is completely
opposite of being hyper.  Oh sure she plays, but she is very gentle and
after being out for a while, she will come up to your feet and just "plop"
down beside you and lay there.  At first we thought this meant she wanted to
be held, but when we picked her up, she would squirm and want to be put
down.  Not only does she just lay at our feet, but she will be walking and
just stop, lay down, and then get up, walk, lay down, and so on.  We told
our vet, even said she seems depressed when she does it, but we don't see
why.  So it isn't that silver mitts are hyper, clearly it is their
character, but can anyone tell me why Belle does this.  Blanco, who is 2
months younger, sees her do this and is starting to copy, or he has the same
problem as she does.
 
Litter Boxes. . . Our ferrets like to rearrange the cage often.  One problem
was them moving the litter box to the center.  They would still use it (most
of the time) but they thought it was something to play with, so they would
also dig out the litter.  We finally went down and bought some bungy cords
and secured the litter box with it.  We have a rectangle litter box that we
found in the dish rack section at the store.  We cut out a square so that
they could climb in it, and that eliminated a lot of accidents on top.  Now
they hit the box 100% of the time on top and 99% of the time on bottom.
 
Runners. . . We have those plastic runners in our hall, but the ferrets like
to make a tunnel and crawl through it, at the same time it is brushing their
hair.  Does anyone elses ferret do this?
 
We made our cage, and found the easiest thing to use for the bottom is the
carpet you find in the automotive department, the kind you use for beds I
think.  It is real short, stable, and easy to cut.  It is also easy to clean
and the ferrets like it.
 
Thanks for the responses about reations of vaccinations, it has openned some
new doors our way.
 
Toni
Bandit, Brey, Belle, Brock, Blackee, Blanco, & Ba-leigh
[Posted in FML issue 1823]