Absolutely. Ferrets definitely grieve and suffer depression when a playmate
dies. It is almost 7 months since our Nina passed on and her sisters and
brothers still look for her in her favorite places. The first week after she
passed on was especially difficult. Everyone of every species in our home
was down. Our baby was very sick and so I think all of the animals knew
something was up and her best friend, Edith would not leave her side for the
few days before she died. Edith was especially heart broken and showed
definite signs of grieving for at least a couple of weeks. In fact I think the
first few days she was still hoping Nina would come back and then after several
days she realized that she wasn't coming back and almost became panicked
searching everywhere for her. And finally she learned to live with this fate
(as did we). I think one thing that helped immensely is that we had babies
in the house. So, whether or not Edith wanted, she was distracted by the babies
and was finally coerced into play by them allowing her to get on with living...
We had taken the babies in only a couple of weeks before Nina died and
thinking back it was the best thing we could have done. I don't know if
anyone else will agree with me on this, but if I had only 2 ferrets and I
knew one was going to die soon, I would run out and get another before
this happened.That way, they can all get to know each other and the 2 left
can help each other cope. I'm glad to have many more than just two actually.
My advice is to allow Zonker to grieve for Fraya, spend extra special time
with him, and then get another and soon!! (Don't be too scared about Zonker
not getting along with another, most ferrets get on famously with each other,
and it is rare for a rivalry case to be impossible.) If you've heard
"The best number of ferrets to have, is one more than you already have"
believe it, this is Gods honest TRUTH. Charlene
[Posted in FML issue 1249]