Hi all,

I have seen several posts on this subject in the archives, and have
taken note on some tips, but I did not come across my particular
question.

We have a new 1 y/o ferret rescue we are trying to integrate into the
'business', she is female and the existing are three girls between 2 -
3 y/o. My question is, does the new girl have a better shot of being
accepted if she 'works things out' with the dominate one first? Or
would it be better to start from the lowest man on the totem pole and
work up?.

Right now I have mostly been having the new girl interact with the
two non-alpha girls to work out the pecking order, and doing group
activities but not letting them fight when they are all together. Am
I going about this wrong? Should I focus on Simba (the new girl) and
Rizzo (the alpha) 'working things out' first, and then the other two
will be more likely to accept her? And by "working things out" I
basically mean supervised ferret fighting. Not a fan of them ripping on
each other, but everything I have read says it is part of the process.

We went through a ferret intro last year that was rough the first month
but 3 months later they were all BFFs. This intro seems a lot slower,
and Rizzo is a lot more vicious. We will keep the new girl no matter
what of course, but we want to do everything possible to let her join
the group. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks,
Andrea and the crazy ferret girls

[Posted in FML 7304]