Just wanted to drop a line now that my schedule is normalizing.  I have
about a hundred unanswered e-mails in my box, many being "I'm sorrys" about
the death of my father-in-law.  Thank you all; I will respond personally,
but it may take a while.
 
Regarding sofas and sofa-sharks: In my immediate experience, I have owned
sofas that have been completely destroyed by dogs, cats, and, yes, ferrets.
I could not stop my ferts from climbing into the hollow arms of our sofa,
and finally replaced it with a futon-sofa having replacable covers.  Problem
solved, but keep reading.  One of my friends elected to fill the hollow
spaces with expanding foam, which seemed like a good idea, but the fuzzies
thought the foam was dirt, and tunneled for China.  He solved the problem
with an FML suggestion, and hot-glued heavy duty alluminum foil (crinkled)
over the places the beasties dug.  For some reason, they started leaving the
sofa alone.  Finally, a third friend stapled masonite to the bottom of the
sofa, but it back-fired when his sofa-shark discovered the gap between the
sofa springs and the arm, and climbed into the sofa anyway, and started
using an interior toliet of ferret design.
 
We consulted for a while, and I suggested that he give the ferret what she
wanted, which was a warm, dark, safe place to sleep that approximated the
natural environment in which ferrets evolved.  We built a wood box, about
1.5 ft by 2 ft, consisting of bottom and top 7 inch levels, and a middle 10
in. level.  Holes were cut between levels, and one each out the top and
bottom.  Each level was separate, and hinged for interior access.  The
entire interior was sanded and varnished, and the exterior was covered with
carpet.  (The reason for no carpet on the interior is to facilitate cleanup,
reduce flea-egg problems, and to reduce long-term odors; old towels are used
for bedding, and are laundered frequently).  In the meantime, the bottom was
removed from the sofa, and left off, and a small night-lite (safely)
installed to drive the darkness away.  While the beastie still likes to
explore the sofa from time to time, as a bed-n-breakfast-n-toliet it was
abandoned if favor of the Ferret High Rise.  After a week, the light was
removed.  (For Safety Monitors in residence, the nightlite was attached to a
block of wood, and left on the floor under the sofa.  An open wire cage
screwed to the block of wood prevented the light from making contact with
flamable surfaces.)
 
I built a similar thing for my beasties, but used carpet tubes cut into 1 ft
sections.  Each section has masonite walls glued and screwed in place, with
a single hole cut in the middle.  Access holes are cut through a couple of
the sections.  Each section is attached to the other with eye-hooks, the
kind with the spring-tab on it, and sections are alligned with small blocks
glued and screwed to the inside of each section.  The exterior is stained
dark brown and varnished.  My Polecat House has six sections, and resides on
its side behind the sofa, and all 13 fuzzies sleep there without exception.
While none of them have ever used a section as a toliet, I can easly replace
any section with a minimum of bother.  I usually find the two sections
farthest from the light the favorites, with sometimes six or seven ferrets
crammed into a single section.
 
Another trick for the construction handicapped is to use a picnic basket
with a hinged lid.  We use an old wicker basket, and glued a block of wood
to each lid.  The ferrets quickly learned to push the lids up with their
noses, and climb into a darkened space filled with clean towels.  This costs
a little more, but is a lot faster to make, and can fit in a lot less space.
 
In the sleeping cages, I place square 2.5 gal buckets with the lids snapped
in place.  A circular hole is cut through the lid for access, and the
interior is filled with towels.  This cost me nothing; the buckets hold the
litter we use for Bastet The Cat.  I've found round buckets work just as
well.  I paint the outside with black non-toxic paint.
 
I guess the bottom line is ferrets have an INSTINCTUAL NEED to explore and
sleep in dark and confined spaces resembling burrows; the type of
environment polecats still live in (which helps explain their love of dryer
hoses, boxes, and pant legs).  Most houses, if properly ferret-proofed, lack
such environs, and the ferrets take it upon themselves to find drawers,
refrigerator spaces, sofa-arms, chair interiors, spaces under dressers and
cabinets, etc., to fill that instinctual need.  The most common ferret cages
are completely open, with little area to allow the ferret to retreat for
comfort or security, so the ferrets hide under bedding or inside sleeping
sacks.  The wood box idea cost less than $20, and the carpet tube idea cost
me less than $10, less than a CD.  The picnic basket idea cost about $25.
But even if they cost $100, it would still be mucho cheaper than replacing a
$1000 sofa.
 
Just an opinion, but isn't it always better to promote security than to
train against instincts?
 
Bob and the 13 Tunnelers of Love
[Posted in FML issue 1461]