Last weekend I gave up.  I felt I had tried everything, and still my two
ferrets wouldn't use the litterbox when they were outside their cage.
 
Inside the cage, they were perfect little aimers.  Let them loose in the
room and you'd think they'd never seen a litterbox in their life.  Ok, I
figured asking them to climb back into the cage to use the litterbox was a
lot to ask, even in a small room.  A few days after I got them, I bought a
second litterbox, identical to the first, and put it in one of their
favorite corners.  They continued to poop on the rug.  I put them in the
second litterbox whenever I saw them backing into a corner.  They pooped on
the rug.
 
I 'innoculated' the new litterbox with poop.  They used the rug.  I switched
litterboxes.  They used the rug.  I cleaned up their 'mistakes' with soap,
with vinegar, with the rug shampoo machine.  They pooped on the rug.  I put
bedding in the corners.  They pooped on the bedding.  *sigh*.  I made it a
point to catch them using the litterbox in the cage and reward them with
Petromalt.  No change.  Sometimes they would go right next to the litterbox,
even moving it out of the way first.  Arrgh!  They NEVER used the second
litterbox.
 
I considered getting one of the 'low entry' litterboxes, since they are
small and I was using a regular kitty litter pan.  Decided not to- they were
using the same kind of litterbox inside the cage.  I made a small, lower
litterbox out of a Rubbermaid container in the spare cage (which has a low
cage door) on the floor.  Put them in the smaller cage overnight.  They
pooped in the litterbox while in the cage.  ("Good girls!") I let them out
and left the door open while they were loose in the room.  They pooped on
the rug.
 
Now this has been going on since the end of March, and last Sunday I'd had
enough.  I threw in the towel, went to Pergament, and got rug runners to
protect the room perimeter from the inevitable 'mines' laid down.  They
pooped on the rug runner.  They went to the rug off the edge of the runner
and pooped on the rug.
 
THEY POOPED IN THE LITTERBOX!!!!
 
(I haven't been this thrilled about s--t since my son was going thru toilet
training.) OK, they don't always use the litterbox, but their hit rate
outside the cage went from 0 to 50% during the last week, and heck, that's
progress.  I'm rewarding them for using the outside litterbox when I catch
them.
 
Geez, if I had known, I would've bought the rug runners two months ago!
 
-Ilena Ayala and the two poopmeisters.
[Posted in FML issue 1954]