With the regard to the concern of the moving group on giving their ferrets
a room of their own: My feelings would be yes, to do so, you can ferret
proof one room so much better than the whole place and it gives them their
own place to store play pretties and other such stuff without it being in
your way and unsightly. Also, I love my darlings who stay uncaged and
learned the difference just a couple of days ago when I picked up two 4
month old tryants who lived in a cage - they were barbarians, hyper,
tortureous, etc. I wouldn't even let them play with my crew for the day
they stayed with me and I spent the whole day trying to calm them down.
Even the look on their faces were different, mine so sweet so trusting so
"lets play together" vs theirs of "what next, what can we destroy" And mine
are less than 1 year old too.
Anyway, I do have mine in the den and washroom and they are closed off from
the rest of the house BUT if I am going to be in another part of the house
for a long period, I open up another room for them and they do have an
adventure of exploring - hadn't been in there for a coule of days and it is
all new and interesting. So you might think of giving them that extra
room, ferretproofing it, and then when you are home and with them, let them
have more area where they can be with you and not shut away.
Bob C: concerning the homemade ceramic dishes. The petstore quality does
not have the regulations that human dishes do, that is true, and may not be
as safe with its lead content. But for home made ceramic dishes (being
a past ceramic hobbist), the glazes are labeled for food safe or lead
containing so the party making the ceramics knows what to use as well as
there is a different temp to fire dishes at than the normal decorative
pieces. If you got someone to make you special dishes, you would be safe
to make sure they know these differences. My hat off to you for the extra
care you give, I am sure it pays off with 18 little ones.
As for potty boxes, this would not work for owning a lot of ferrets but for
my 4, which are very small ferrets, I have some of the plastic professional
kind and some of the plastic storage boxes I cut the fronts out and I have
some "temporary" boxes - shoe boxes, I have cut the ends out, used duct
tape around the bottom, corners and sides (how I love that stuff, ducttape)
and I place these in "new" corners they discovered I clean them daily and
throw out the whole box when it shows signs of heavy use and do up a new
one, usually 30 days. Some of these are temporarily in that position too
as if they haven't used it in a week or two, I remove it, they have 9
stations all the time and their favorites. Of course now as time has gone
on, they rarely find a new spot.
With regard to the little tyke who won't use his litter box anymore after
being so good. sometimes this is sign of a blatter infection and they
begin to associate the pain they have with the litter. I would suggest a
check up with the vet and see, maybe a change of litter too as they may
have had a scratch the litter irritated and they just associate the pain
with that particular litter. These are especially true when they go just
outside their potty stations.
Millie & her cleaning crew
Easy Off: the most perfect ferret in the whole wide world
Ammonia: this skeem of yard is just for you Easy Off, here, drag this
end around here, like this, and then go around here and and HI GRANDMA!
Cascade: the Observer, Dear Santa: I would like a life sized ferret
doll that has black legs, black tail, silver body, white head and narrow
black rings around the eyes, please sir, ASAP.
Ajax: yet to come Mama Why is Ammonia always in trouble? I'm not
going to be too am I?
[Posted in FML issue 2419]
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