He everyone.  We added a new ferret to our clan yesterday.  Boy - we're
up to 5 now.  We origianlly planned on no more than 2!
 
She's a silver-mit.  Absolutely beautiful!  At first we weren't going to
keep her.  My cousin called me and asked if we could take in a ferret.
A friend of his couldn't keep it.  So I called him back to get the scoop
and it turns out that the kid that owned her had a bad homelife.  His
step-father flipped out and 3 of the kids left home.  The kid is 16 and
was one of the ones he threw out.  The ferret is 6 months and was lost
in the duct-work for 2 weeks.  The father threw the cage & food out and
said that if it showed up he'd have it put to sleep or let it go in the
woods.  So the kid found her and she's been floating between homes now
for 2 weeks.  We agreed to take her and that Monday morning I'd post her
to a good home, etc.  I was sure she'd go quick.  Well when they brought
her over it was love at first sight.  She's bigger that our biggest
(Salt).  I don't have a scale but I know Salt weighs almost 2 pounds
with her winter coat.  This one has to be at least 2.5 if not 3!  She is
definately a She though.  She's never been around other ferrets so she
didn't take well to our other 4.  Three of ours got along great on their
end.  Sniffed her, followed her but otherwise it made no difference to
them.  Salt on the other hand went bazerk.  If some of you remember a
couple of weeks ago we purchased a baby and I wrote in about Salt's
behavior.  Very violent towards the baby.  Well I rode that one out and
within a week they acted like sisters.  I think this one will take a
little longer.  She's afraid of the ferrets altoether.  She's curious,
but when they start to play she has no idea of what to do and screams
like they're killing her and then runs towards me shaking.  She has no
ferret social skills what-so-ever.  She doesn't know how to play like
they do and she prefers humans to ferrets.  We named her Shadow because
she hasn't left our side since we took her in.  EXTREMELY cuddly.  I
thought Salt was our teddy bear.  This one wants held constantly.  She
wants to fall asleep in our laps as we watch tv.  Amazing.  Needless to
say, Salt attacking her to show dominance hasn't helped her warm up to
ferrets.  The first night we were up with them most of the nigt because
Salt had the death hold on Shadow's neck most of the night, shaking her.
 Then last night we were awakened by the screaming again and went in to
find that our baby was sucking on Shadow's ear.  Shadow just freaked
out.  When any of them make contact with her she freaks out.  I got up
around 3 am to peak in on them and found Shadow had moved into the big
hammock with the other 4.  I guess that helped "bond" them because this
morning she wasn't AS jittery.  Even pounced on Salt but when Salt
pouced back AAAAAAAKKK!  Came running to mommy.  This one is going to
take some patience.
 
Michelle & Kenny
Salt, Pepper, Ayla, Snowball & Shadow
[Posted in FML issue 1113]