the squeaky toy reaction that some ferrets have has always fascinated me
as well.  Our oldest boy, Socks, was a rescue that we got from F.U.R.R.Y.
when we got him, he and his cagemate Goldy had some favorite toys that
Kurt sent along with them, 2 of which were squeaky toys.  Goldy was never
too concerned with the squeaking, but Socks would just freak out when his
toys were squeaked!  I made the mistake of squeaking one of them right
next to him the day after we got them and I didn't know him very well
yet, and he jumped at me and latched onto my hand!  Right on the tender
skin between the thumb and index finger.  OUCH!!!!  He didn't break the
skin, but he did run like a madman for the couch with my hand,lol, I
eventually got him to let go and was much more careful after that!  He
and Goldy were both abused biters to begin with, (which was why we went
all the way to St.  Louis to get them, as they couldn't be adopted out,
and my husband and myself rehabilitate abused animals, dogs, ferrets,
cats, ect.  We just can't turn our backs on an animal in need.)
 
I thought that his biting behaviour might be part of it, but when we
would try to take the toys he would really get upset and poof out,
squeal, hiss,ect...any effort to calm him down would result in getting
bitten.  For awhile we actually just had to wear gloves whenever we
handled him or Goldy.  We even tried removing the sqeaky toys, which
was a big mistake.  He acted like a mother whose baby we had taken.
He searched and searched for the toys, wouldn't eat and got really
agressive....so we gave him his squeakers back.
 
Believe it or not, the thing that got him to stop frenzying over the
squeaky toys was hissing, of all things.  One day my husband went to pick
him up and had the sqeaky toy in his other hand and as Socks went to bite
him for the toy, he hissed and Socks just froze for a second and turned
to look at my husband as if to say "that was the strangest thing I have
ever seen a hooman do!  you mean I'm not supposed to bite you??"
 
many years later, Socks still has those squeaky toys (we took out the
squeakers) and he still loves those toys but doesn't bite over them
anymore..he just grabs them and hides them in a hurry!  None of our
other kids ever bit over them, but any sqeaky noise will bring both the
albinos, U.V. and Baby, one boy, one girl, running out from where ever
they are and they will franticly grab whatever the squeaky object is and
stash it under the couch.  Hannibal, Izzy, and Fenris aren't fazed by the
squeaky sound.  Our beautiful blaze boy, Tazzicle was an itty bitty thing
when we got him, would squeak or squwak occasionaly and they would do the
same thing with him...you would see U.V. running across the floor
carrying tazz in his mouth just like a mommy would do, and he would stash
him in the blanket under the couch.  Then a few minutes later, Hannibal
would come out from under the couch, carrying Tazz, and take him to the
hammock in the cage.  then Loki, who was our smallest aside from tazz and
the only female, would step in and run all the boys off because Tazz was
"her" baby.  It was really funny, they never tried to hurt him at all,
they were just trying to keep him away from each other..weird,huh?
I would tend to agree with Kim Fox, I think they were being protective.
 
Certain(but not all) cell phone rings will make them all come running
too, they come and take the phone away and hide it, if they can't get to
the phone, they war dance and bounce off the walls like crazy, but they
don't get aggressive...just super-playful!  Funny thing too,the cell
phone rings don't affect Socks... He couldn't care less!  and his title
used to be the "squeak-freak"!  lol, I guess that it is different for
each ferret.
[Posted in FML issue 4378]