Jennifer wrote:
>silver mitt named Puck.  He is three months old this week, and I'm hoping
>that all of you will tell me that he's going to grow out of this problem
>I'm about to tell you--he is an extremely early riser.  .  .
 
Hi Jenn,
 
Please hang in there.  I too have a ferret who has been getting up at 0445
to 0500 - just an hour before I want to get up.  His name is Mudfoot and we
got him and his sister Ollie as kits about 19 months ago.  Mudfoot and Ollie
live under our bed.  (Our bed has two sets of four drawers under the
mattress and they have taken over the whole set - sigh.)
 
Anyway, the two of them generally go to sleep about 11 PM and only in the
last three weeks has Mudfoot been getting up so early.  Ollie still sleeps
late.  The thing is, I remember that last year at about this time (mid
Spring) he also started getting up early.  We were new to ferrets at the
time and tried lots of ways trying to keep him in bed till a decent hour -
to no avail.  Sometimes he will play quietly with his toys but most of the
time he seems bent on making a racket.  He bangs around his heavy toys, his
scratches at everything, walks all over the bed and makes a real nuisance of
himself.  I've even opened the door to give him access to the rest of our
house but he still wants to hang around the bed making lots of noise.  He
gets really quite when we are up and about.
 
Nothing worked to stop this - but, guess what?  He gradually started to get
up later and later, and after about six weeks he was back to his usual
routine of getting up when we do.
 
Now we are hoping that this year will be the same.  Maybe it is a seasonal
thing with males, I don't know.  They both sleep in the drawers (where it is
very dark), so I don't think it is the sun that's waking him.
 
Anyway, take heart, I think it will get better - at least for this year.
You are not alone.  Email me if you hear anything that helps.
 
- John Watson -
 
Lots of folks say ferrets are crazy.
To be sure, they don't seem to care if they live or die,
just so long as they're seeing something NEW.
[Posted in FML issue 1934]