The most common time we see tail wagging is when they are happily going
through a tube.  Rat-a-tat-tat!  Hjalmar who passed away a number of years
ago, used to do it when playing hide and seek.  In a very exaggerated voice
I'd say "Wherrrrrre's Hjalmar?".  His favorite hiding place tended to be
in the cover over-hang around the edge our bed, but he'd commonly have only
his head hidden so his plump bum and madly wagging tail would sticking out.
It was very hard to keep repeating "Wherrrre's Hjalmar?" instead of
laughing , till he'd finally poke out his head to which I'd exclaim,
"THERE'S Hjalmar!" in a surprised voice.  Then we'd go right back to
playing the game.  That would go on most days, for maybe a half hour or
longer, for almost his entire life.  He loved that game.
 
There are some interesting historic pieces that Bob Church found about
ferrets which used to be happily used to control rats in NYC.  When
companies first came out with poisons specifically for rats then the
anti-ferret laws began showing up.  Have to think about whose wallets
were filled that way... Have to also think about whose were depleted.
 
Geoff, Send this on to the Petsmart people: http://www.trifl.org/cedar.html
 
Ronnie wrote:
>Does anyone use smell or light to try to attract a deaf ferret?  I wonder
>if there is any range that they can hear (very high or very low)?  Just
>curious and thinking of ways to find one in the event they may wander off.
 
Turn off lights and walk around with an open tube of Nutrical and a
swinging a bright flashlight for the motion?  Yep.  Worked so-so.  Nowhere
near as well as a squeaky, a bell, or a duck call for hearing ferrets.
Waardensburg has variable expression.  Some ferrets can hear but only in
certain ranges or at certain volumes, some can hear perfectly well, some
can't hear at all.  It varies with the individual and a perfectly hearing
one can have kits with some hearing and some with no hearing, and so on,
in any direction... Perhaps a person could try heating up a favorite treat
and setting fan going behind it?  Ferrets vary in attitudes of personal
independence...
 
Ronnie also wrote:
>The (deaf) DEW I have now, Merlin, is the most persistent escape artist
>I have ever met.  Possibly because he has no sounds to distract him, not
>sure.  If anything is moved even a fraction of an inch, Merlin will seize
>the opportunity to climb it to get to something else.  He can also undo
>just about any barrier I put up.  He has endless persistence.
 
Yep, the deaf grouping has it's adventurers just like any other but they
are in more danger because they can't hear, so those of us who are or have
been in the position of sharing our lives with such individuals know more
worry on their behalf, simply because we do love them so much.
 
Personally, we prefer function over form rather than form over function
because we consider it safer for the ferrets, but we have taken those who
needed us, looks aside.  Nothing wrong with loving a deaf one, a blind one,
a "plain-jane" one in the natural colors.  It's the personalities and their
ability to be as healthy as possible that count.  I can think of only
once when we went with a specific look and a certain breeder and that was
because of one of us needing to see someone reminiscent of a dear one who
had passed away at a ripe old age.  Steve and I have cried more than once
over some others in our family whose lives were sorely impacted by breeding
for a specific look.
 
Foods: we feed a mix of about 5 ferret foods: TF, Marshalls, the Ferret
Store's food, an 8 in 1, etc.  Did recently get a bag of TF (last month or
the month before) which happened to be fine; nothing wrong with it at all.
Perhaps it's because we have had ferrets longer than many here (about 18
years) but we recall such problems (spoiled food before date) on a rare
basis with just about EVERY pet food manufacturer.  It happens.  It doesn't
happen often, but it does happen.  Much more serious is when a manufacturer
gets the proportions of an ingredient or two wrong.  That happened many
years ago with Path Valley food.  The plant which was hired to make their
food for them put in too little of one nutrient resulting in malnutrition
for that nutrient, and too much of another nutrient resulting in poisoning
for that nutrient, both at the same time, but they were cumulative and
slowly built-up.  Path Valley itself lost a majority of their "stock"
when fed this; I don't mean that they threw away food (though they did,
obviously) but that ferrets died or wound up with severe malformations.
Having a line worker confuse two sacks is yet another reason, besides
having options when foods change, and besides providing an interesting
assortment for providing multiple types of foods for ferrets.  The list
of reasons to give a mix could go on and on.  Remember that such mixes
take TIME to be accepted.  Sometimes grinding the old food to coat the
news ones helps.  Like Tracy, we mix foods together in a storage container
before serving.
[Posted in FML issue 3118]