Greeting all!
 
Hope everyone's fur angels are doing well.
 
Millie, I am still praying.
 
Ed, I have a pet mink.  Believe it or not.  Trouble, II is a black mink,
currently 8 to 9 weeks old and totally a people mink.  He cries the minute
I walk in the door, and dutifully follows me around like a puppy.  We hand
wrestle, and the nip training is doing wonderfully well.
 
If Trouble wanders out of sight of me, he starts to cry and bark, until I
call him and he comes running at which time he wants picked up and cuddled.
Oh, and he IS 100% with the litter box.  (Wish all the ferrets here were
just 70%)
 
Now that you know how wonderful Trouble is, let me explain why.  I got him
from a friend who purchased him from a despicable mink rancher.  He was two
weeks old when I got him.  His eyes were infected and swollen so bad, 24
hrs after I got him we were at the emergency vet.  His eyes had to be cut
open.  In the process, the puss shot two feet in the air.  Three days
later, we were back, believe it or not, the little booger had a problem
with fur balls.
 
Trouble has been my constant companion.  While he was little little, he
went to work with me, rode around in my shirt, went to the restaurants with
me in his picnic basket, he even slept on me, years of sleeping with ill,
old, or infant animals has taught me not to toss and turn.  He was never
without me for the first 7 weeks I have had him.  Now he stays home, and
is over joyed when mom gets home.  He has bonded to me.  He is my baby.
He will play with others, but has to have me near by.  He also plays with
the ferrets.  Oh, he makes a kinda dooking noise too.  He will be altered
before he reaches sexual maturity, I do not want to have a male mink in
heat in the house.
 
Now, I have rescued other mink, one was a wild mink that was a kit of about
Troubles age when she came in.  She was too old to even think about taming
down.  Once spring came, we took her to the state park officials who tagged
her, and released her into the wild, they couldn't believe how healthy she
was and how wild she remained knowing she was raised by humans.
 
The third mink is Smokey.  Charcoal grey, and some idiot had her canines
cut down.  Her tail had been damaged and hard, so part was amputated.  Her
bites do not break the skin, but leave wonderful bruises.  Her cage mate is
Sidney, an abused ferret (the woman admitted to beating him with a wooden
spoon).  Smokey will tolerate people, but does not want to be handled.  She
plays with Sid and gets play time out in the ferret room, when it is time
to go back into the cage, she knows and she will co operate, but there
should be a video camera rolling on the days she doesn't.
 
Do think mink make good pets?  It depends.  If you have the time to spend
with them (or have a job where they can go with you), and you get them
young enough where you are mom or dad.  I wouldn't recommend them to a
house with children, birds, or other small animals that could be looked at
as food.
 
I have been told that mink raised the way Trouble is being raised bond only
to one person, and become very protective of that person.  The bonding part
I believe, the rest will remain to be proven.
 
And anyone who doesn't believe that a mink and ferret can live together,
just email me.  I'll send a picture.
 
Just my thoughts,
 
Hug the fur angels.
 
Jean
Ferrets Unlimited/The Raisin Retreat Ferret Shelter
 
PS On my birthday, June 21, the official letter from the IRS arrived
stating we are now recognized as a charity, (happy birthday to me)  And we
have the coolest T-shirts (100% of the proceeds benefit the shelter - hint
hint hint)
 
Ok, I am done now.  Dooks!
[Posted in FML issue 2722]