Slow morning with the mail today so I figured I would just jot down some
observations on our four individuals. They definitely all have different
specialties.
 
The "trouble maker" prompted this in part. The best place to start looking
for Weasy is in any place that a ferret should not be. She's the first to
climb onto a stair well partition if there is anything on top of it - it has
a 10 foot drop off on one side! This morning she finally broke into the
cupboard under the kitchen sink. This is a typical cupboard with two doors.
We had a plastic child proof catch across the handles, shaped like a "U"
with a cross bar ratchet slide. She has been pulling at it for weeks and
finally freed the ratchet and got the door open!. When not a trouble maker
she's a scrounger. We like to watch the early morning news with coffee and
bagel. Weasy is always in the chair before you and waiting for breakfast to
arrive.
 
Baby is the "speedy" one. Nothing can be done at less than a gallop. She
rarely just walks around the edges of things and investigates. You see a
brown flash across the rug and she's gone from one under one chair to
another. We have about 20 feet of 4" plastic drain pipe cut into short
sections and joined into a maze with elbows and "T"s. She can be into one 2"
access hole, through the maze and out another in seconds. Her other forte is
nipping. Ever tried getting a pipe wrench onto a nut in a tight space? You
get it part way on, lever it down a bit, get a better bite on the nut and
lever it again and so on. Baby has this down to a fine art. She gets her
teeth part way on to your ankle. Then in rapid succession will lever down a
bit, move the top jaw up a fraction, lever and in seconds has developed a
major hold on your foot!
 
Our male, Lester, is the most ungainly ferret I've ever met. He climbs.
However, his primary means of getting down, or anywhere else, seems to be to
stumble and fall off. Doesn't seem to bother him. At first we wondered if he
was "defective" but decided its just his brain is working ahead of his hind
end. The front decides it want to be somewhere, he forgets to tell the rear
which then falls over him or gets dragged off to the side! All the weight is
in the rear anyway so once it starts falling he looses it completely.
Actually he can be quite fast when he wants to. Cats! Lester will go nose to
nose with either of the cats and spend hours just watching.
 
Sassy, our only white, should have been renamed "Moby Dick" long ago. Early
on she was very ill with what may have been an early instance of ECE. She
went down to about 1.25 lbs. Now she is over 2 lbs! She has a temper. If she
wants out of the cage and you don't comply she will get in the food bowls
and empty them out of the cage. There are three bowls, all fixed to the bars
and not moveable. Both feet first empty the contents onto the cage floor
then she will scat it out through bars. Sassy is also probably the most
affectionate of the four. She's certainly the only one who is moderately
patient if handled. All the others are a case of "gotta go!".
 
I also "gotta go!". Time to get back to work.
[Posted in FML issue 1350]