Hi,
I've only posted once before but I read every issue. Just a refresher, I
have 6 rug rats and just recently moved home with my parents (May) and
had a problem with my dad not liking ferret smell (imagine that!). Follow
up on that, Dad said ferrets must go- Tammy said ferrets go, Tammy goes.
Dad loves Tammy so we are all living happily together still.
 
Michelle asked about baby gates, useless, take it back. All 6 of mine
climb over it even the fat lazy one. My smallest girl actually goes
through it. I use it to keep the dog upstairs when the kids are out. The
one benefit is ferrets like small children don't realize sound travels
and a ferret climbing the baby gate makes alot of noise.
 
Now I'd like to share a few things that amuse me and hopefully will
brighten your day.
I use ferretone on their bellies to clip nails. The other day I was
clipping my own nails and here comes 6 ferrets swarmming around me on the
bed obviously looking for their ferretone! Boy, were they mad when there
wasn't any. So, I clipped theirs as well. Clipping nails with all 6 of
them out it also a show. Picture one ferret on his back licking his tummy
and 5 others all trying to get their little faces in for a lick, and
don't dare turn your back on the bottle of ferretone!
 
Jake is the only one that eats human food, the rest are quite happy with
Iams and peanuts (unsalted). Jake will climb up the front of me to get to
my plate. His favorite is spaghetti.
 
Samantha is my littlest girl, about 1 lb. and she has taken the title of
crickett slayer. She actually ripped a crickett clear in half once!
 
And finally there's Randy. I believe he's a lost cause. Does anyone know
if ferrets can be mentally slow? Randy doesn't follow any ferret rules.
He poops in the middle of the floor (doesn't back up most of the time),
he goes face first off heights (instead of butt first), he can't drink
from a water dish only bottles (he bites the water), and no joke, when I
bend down to pick him up he jumps at me and half the time we bump heads.
It's always very cute when he does really dumb things, and I love him
dearly, but I am a bit worried that he may snap some day and become a
psycho ferret. He's 1 1/2 yrs now. He's the biggest of all 6 and he's the
roughest, he bites hard when he bites, he hasn't bitten me in about 6
months but he just doesn't seem to be all there upstairs.
 
One other thing I've wanted to comment on. I feed my kids Iams Kitten now
but originally I had fed them Science Diet Growth at the recommendation
of my vet. SD alone gave them very soft stools so I'd mix purina ferret
chow with it. This became expensive and didn't smell that great. Reading
the ingredients in both SD and Iams I noticed one of the first ingedients
in SD is corn. Iams doesn't list corn until further down the list. I've
read that ferrets don't digest corn well and therefore I assume that's
why SD upset their system. I know alot of you use SD do you have any
problems with it? Is there any down points to Iams I should know?
 
All my kids are healthy (knock on wood) and I'm very proud to share with
you my vets reaction to their annual check up. She was amazed that I had
6 ferrets without any health problems. They didn't even need their ears
cleaned!
 
Anyway, those are a few things I've been saving up to share. Wishing you
all well. See Ya!
 
Tammy and company    Jake, Ozzy, Randy, Zak, Samantha and Sunshine :)
[Posted in FML issue 0974]