After 17 years of ferret ownership I almost lost one of my ferrets this
weekend due to my own stupidity.  Nobody likes to admit to making
mistakes, least of all me, but if someone can learn from this experience
then it will be worth telling.
 
My ferrets are free roam in their room (a bedroom converted to ferret
playroom).  There are two large (home made) cages in the room which are
always open.  Saturday morning I woke at about 8:00am and headed for the
ferret room to let them out to play.  The minute I hit the hallway I could
hear a strange noise coming from the room.  It took me precious seconds to
track down the source of the noise.
 
Julie my 5 year old personality-plus blaze female had become wedged
between the back of the cage and the wall.  She had climbed up the side
of the cage and when she tried to shimmy down the back she became stuck.
The noise I heard was her frantic gasping for air!  I have no idea how
long she'd been there.  I immediately pulled the cage away from the wall
and she dropped to the floor and just lay there.  My heart began pounding
and the panic set in.  When I picked her up her little body it was cold.
 
I quickly wrapped her in a blanket and flew out the door straight to the
emergency vets (speeding and running red lights all the way).  Julie was
in shock and was suffering from hypothermia.  They would need to stabilize
her before checking for further damage.  She was placed into an incubator
with oxygen and a warming blanket.  To make a long story short Julie
recovered and was able to come home late that afternoon.  For the next two
days she remained quite and slept a lot but as of this morning she is back
to her usual bratty self.
 
How did this happen....it happened because I was racing around cleaning
cages the day before leaving for vacation, and stupidly forgot to pull the
cage back out from the wall, where I had pushed it so I could clean the
bits of food up around the front of it.  To make matters worse I did this
almost a month ago and then completely forgot about it afterwards and
never even noticed later the potential danger that existed.
 
I came so close to loosing her this weekend....even when I know better
than to have heavy items too close to the wall.  Please take the time
right now, today, to check and double check how close your furniture is
from a wall.  It may save a life!
 
Barbara Gustafson
Alberta Ferret Society
President
[Posted in FML issue 3755]