Hello Phillip, thanks for forwarding the letters!!
[Aren't you receiving them direct from me? You *are* in the addressee
list.]
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Hello Wednesday's Mom!
> little squeak-warbles - hard to describe but I'm sure y'all are
> familiar. Are these the norm? What do they mean? How do you convince a
> ferret not to bite?
Yeah, they usually make those noises when playing. I had one ferret
who would work hard to enrage the cat by pointedly 'ignoring' the cat
while walking closer and closer, eventually stepping on the cat's
tail, while chattering the whole time. The poor cat was quite
befuddled by this behavior.
I've heard that you can spray something called bitter apple onto your
fingers, then encourage the ferret to bite, they won't like the taste.
Mine all outgrew it, with us making *loud* hurt noises when bitten and
tapping their noses. They will chew some, just like puppies and
kittens do.
> I'm feeding her IAMS kitten food and water in general, with occasional
> drops of that cod-liver protein stuff. She seems to enjoy apple juice
> and cream-of-broccoli soup and orange juice and milk - I do limit
> her dairy intake to a couple of spoonfuls every few days - is this
> enough, too much, just right? What foods are good or bad for her?
If it doesn't mess up her bowel movements, you're probably fine. So
far as I know, everything other than milk products is fair game -
matter of fact, my vet out here said to feed my ferrets only 1/2 cat
food, and then the other half healthy human foods - fruits, veggies,
noodles, other grains, COOKED eggs, COOKED meats, fish, etc. I fed
them mostly cat food, but offered them foods when I thought of it.
> She tolerates the harness I put on her when we go out, and I'm thinking of
> getting an ID collar with bell at some point. Should I wait til she is full-
> grown (how old is fullgrown anyway?) or do so now? If I take her for walks
> without a harness, will she stay near me or should I always have it on her
> when we are out? So far, due to the cold weather, I take her out wearing the
> harness but also nestled in my jacket - but it's spring now, just about, so
> I'll be letting her actually walk with the leash on. What sorts of experiences
> have people had with training a ferret to use one of those?
You can put a cut down kitten collar on her - just be sure to check
the fit frequently. Ferrets can slip out of collars, so it needs to be
snug, if you can sneak 1 finger between the ferret and collar, it's
fine. More than that, the ferret can easily sneak out. You want her on
a leash all the time when you're out - they can run *fast*, and can
sneak into little openings you can't follow them into. If you want to
play a mean game of ferret chase, you can let them run with the leash
dragging after them. We used to play a game with Rikki (his idea) that
had him running towards us, and last minute he'd try to sneak by.
Sometimes the dragging leash was the only way we caught him.
*Tigger*
[Posted in FML issue 0239]
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