Several months ago I separating the house in the evenings so the
beasties could have more out of cage time. For 20+ years I've had free
roam ferrets. That was to change with the addition of Sully, Dante and
the Rainbow World Exotic biters. As the RWE ferrets matured they became
less accepting of other, gentler, and older ferrets, and they formed
their own 'gangs', yeah, two different gangs that don't like each other
or other ferrets (Bloods & Crypts? Hades Guardians? Beastie Mafia?).

To protect the other ferrets, and to keep my sanity, I kept the
beasties caged while I was away, and finally I had to devise a way
to let them out separate from the others. Our house is old and has a
partial area of the basement with a concrete floor. Years ago I had
part of that area sectioned off for the ferrets. The ferrets love the
cold, dank basement, and snuggle in their warm thick quilt much of the
time. There is a stairway that leads to the basement with a landing
between that leads to their outside enclosure. I attached slightly
angled hooks (hammered to be more up than curved) and eyes to the door
frame in the kitchen (the doorway that goes downstairs) and attached 
a 3 extension panel section of the exercise pen, which allows a small
entry area into the kitchen. In the evenings I bring all the 'house'
ferrets up into the main part of the house, put up the barrier and
let the 'beasties' out in the downstairs area for the night. Typically
they are out for 11-12 hours, longer on the weekends.

A few names that fit -

Beezel - talk about a little devil. Lean dark sable, RWE. This little
one will bite to the bone and shred your hands in a heartbeat. He's
woken me at night by biting my nose, hard enough to draw blood.  All I
see is the blunted hair end of his skinny tail fleeing off the bed...

Banshee - hear her scream and you'll understand. Deaf, DEW, also a 
bite to the bone biter, RWE.

Damien - another biter. Worse on other ferrets than me but always
unpredictable. Deaf blaze RWE.

Dante - Denmark multi-colored browns and white. A terror with some
other ferrets, especially sleeping ferrets.

Onyx - Dark sable, RWE.

Sabre - Always on the look out for an innocent victim when with the
house ferrets.

Xena - wildly energetic bullyess. Lean sable RWE.

Peepers - huge eyes, sable. Stumpy - tumor removed from end of tail
leaving her with a 'stump' tail.

tle
www.ferretfamilyservices.org

[Posted in FML 6134]