Does Momma babytalk her little ones?
 
Oh, boy you betcha' she does.  Let Momma out of the birthing/nursing cage
for a little romp and exercise while cleaning her cage.  Man-o-man!  Does
she tear around, like 90 miles an hour.  She just near goes frantic
checking out every nook and corner, and man, lookout if she finds another
ferret loose on the floor, especially if the one she finds is also a
nursing Momma ferret.  All hell breaks loose then.
 
Momma ferret will attack the other Momma with a fury and savagery that is
greater than two male ferrets going at it, especially if the males are full
grown viripotent males.  And the other female Momma ferret will meet the
ones fury with a fury of her own.
 
A quick separation of the two Mommas and they calm down after a little bit
and will then go back to their respective litters.  Thats when the whole
population of ferretville sets up a veritable symphony of multiple,
quadruple dooks and chicken-like clucks that come forth from Momma like
from a machine gun.  Very very rapid and they remind me of what it must be
like to hear a couple dozen simultaneous interchanges at a national chicken
convention!  The "clucks" come so fast and furious that they're impossible
to count.
 
Never have I heard a ferret cluck more loudly and more frequently than at
that moment when she sticks her nose into her brood of babies.  She just
goes nuts aclucking away.
 
Likewise with the kits;  they appear to go completely nuts and chatter
away at Momma too the instant she snuggles back into the pack of
twisting, wriggling babies.  They too set up a symphony of their own,
just dooking or clucking to beat the band.
 
So when Momma "comes home," to her babies, so to speak, it's a real
cacophony of clucks, the likes of which most of us have never heard before.
 
So to Signe I'd say, Yes Momma ferrets do "talk babytalk" to their own
little love bundles.  Oh yes, indeed they do.  And the babies seem to
answer back, cluck for cluck.
 
To Ticee & Timon: Do I understand correctly that you are actually enclosing
the front paws of your ferret in little booties?  (softpaws) Knowing how
much ferrets like to dig and use their claws for all sorts of things, even
for their better health, it seems to me the same thing as your putting my
shoes on my hands instead of on my feet.  My god, how frustrating that must
be!  All of a sudden my hands become essentially useless.  Maybe it's the
same with the ferret.  Are you frustrating that ferret with those booties?
Too me, it would seem so un-natural.  Wonder what the ferret has to say
could that it should speak?
 
God, should that he live, how can HE, SHE, or "IT" allow that we cut out
the ferret's insides to spay/neuter them and butcher their rear ends to
descent them, and some have their teeth pulled out or filed down, and some
have their claws cut off, and now we are "shoeing" them with booties.
Hesoos Kristos!  And we call ourselves "humane." Here hedonism truly does
run amuck.
 
Edward Lipinski, and ashamed to be a member of the human "kind."  Just
maybe PETA is correct in their stance against humans keeping animals as
"PETS."
 
PS
Also would be most interested if you could report to the readership just
how your ferrets react to your baby coming home that very first day.
 
And to Amy Seyler, how did your 4 ferrets react to your two infants on
the very first days you came home with them?  Could you please tell us?
[Posted in FML issue 2707]