I have a 9 week old baby and although he's not the first kit I've owned
he's rather complicated! My very first ferret was a kit, but he was
much more obedient and calmer than my current boy (Trooper). Ever since
then I've owned unwanted adult ferrets (although I'm not a rescue) so
I'm kind of clueless on some things.

When I first got Trooper (from Petco) he was very afraid of people and
would bite if you tried to pick him up or approached him too fast.
After plenty of bonding, he now enjoys my company and although he is
shy around guest he warms up to them quickly. He'll even jump into my
lap looking for attention. Next I had to nip train him. Although I
enjoyed playing with him he would get worked up and bite way too hard!
It took lots of scruffing but after a week he got the point. Now he's
perfect and rarely goes over the limit.

So on to more problems. Trooper is very aggressive over food!
Especially treats. If he's eating and you attempt to take away the food
or move him away from the food be prepared to lose a finger! He does
let my other ferret eat with him but if I try to interfere he yelps and
tries to bite. With treats it's even worse! I don't usually give treats
because the kind I use are sugary and unhealthy; I use Ferretvite as
the treat instead (in small amounts). When housetraining/litter
training I use the sugary ones till they've learned what is correct.
Trooper is very aggressive over treats. He will try and shove his whole
head in the container and grab as many as possible! Also, if I try to
feed him a treat by hand he just about takes my finger off. I give him
and the other ferret a treat when I put them away he eats his quickly
and tries to fight my adult female for hers. Of course, she shows him
who is boss pretty fast but it's still not a good habit. Since he's now
pretty well potty trained (not perfect but good enough) I've decided
to take away the treats in general. He's not aggressive when given
Ferretvite. I'm still scared about his aggressiveness over his usual
food though. Although we rarely have children in the house I'd hate for
a child, or one of my brother's teenage friends to try and touch him
while he's eating and be bitten!

Last problem, when he doesn't get his way and is put into the cage
(after about 2 hours of play), he seems to knaw on the old clothes and
fleece I have in there out of frustration. This isn't good since some
of the old clothes I had were easy to chew apart so I replaced then
with fleece and old cotton T-shirts (he can't really chew through
those and swallow the pieces). I hope he grows out of this.

Other than that he's a very playful sweetheart! I just hope we can fix
a couple of these bad habits.

Also, seeing as he's out about 3-4 hours a day, and a lot of times even
more than that, he gets rather bored of his toys. My ferrets have 2
tubes and a million smaller cat/ferret toys. Problem is, they hide all
of the smaller toys in places I cannot always get to. He does enjoy
playing with my adult ferret but she's alittle older and wants to rest
and explore after a while. What are some other toys ferrets enjoy while
out of the cage? Grass/plastic balls they can roll in? Dig box?

Thanks;
Amanda

[Posted in FML 6893]