I had a ferret most of you heard of, Nibble-ed. She got along extremely
well with Byte-me, had absolutely no issues with Nib at that time.

I then got Podo and Kodo. Podo was in bad shape with some kind of
cancer. I had him less than two months when I had to put him down,
both were rescues from who became a good friend.

Nib would attack Podo. I had to keep them separate. It became if that
if a ferret was sick or injured, NIb would work to finish the job and
I could not have that. I had to separate Nib from Podo on several
occasions before I figured out what was happening.

Then Bud came from a shelter. Bud was an excellent ferret, very laid
back. Just about everything was 'OK' with him. But one day I was
washing dishes, stepped back and right on Bud. He was hurt bad but not
unrecoverable. I was devastated to have hurt him. He was healing slowly
and I took extra super close care of him. He was recovering pretty good
and getting back close to normal but Nib would attack him so I kept
them separate and even gave Bud a 'hidy hole' of his own to sleep in.
He loved that.

Bud began to get to the point he was almost back to total normal so I
let him loose with the others. There was not problem from Nib. The 4
ferrets I had at the time, Byte-me, Nibble-ed, Kodo and Bud were all
great little animals and all got along with each other fine.

One morning I got up and found Bud in the porch laying down so I picked
him up, he was stiff from Rigor. His neck was wet. The only thing I
could think of was Nibble-ed finally got to Bud and killed him. This
was a very hard lesson to learn for me where Bud was a favorite (they
all are actually, just some more than others).

Eventually Nibble-ed passed naturally which was good where she would
have attacked Byte-me when she got near her end. If Nib had done
Byte-,e I probably would have done something to Nibble-ed that I would
have been sorry for. Is just animals doing what their instincts lead
them to do, cull out the weak and infirm.

Nibble-ed was the only ferret I ever had to have such a problem. This
could happen again, and did. Pete and RePete were great animals but
there was an issue with RePete. He kept attacking Pete and would have
killed him for sure if I didn't keep them separated. Where I have this
HUGE cage I was able to put up a wall between them on one floor so each
had half the cage with their own water and 'J' feeder. That wall was
of the same wire of the rest of the cage. I was hoping their having
visible contact and all but touching contact they would grow to
accepting each other but that never happened.

Pete was a most loving ferret but the instant RePete came on the scene
Pete retracted deeply and never came out. Pete crashed and died one day
for reasons I have yet to learn. I just found him in the hall where he
died of no apparent reason. But this did not change the demeanor of
RePete. Absent of RePete, Pete was a different animal but when RePete
was around Pete's personality changed to a whole different animal. He
stopped the constant kisses and all when I played with him.

So it happens to others. And NO, RePete had nothing to do with the loss
of Pete, I let them have totally separate 'out' time.

By the way, I had Diz for a while, she was from a good friend and was
the most human loving ferret I ever knew. I was to keep Diz for a year
while the owner was away. I could not let Diz loose with either of Pete
or RePete where both would attack Diz, who got along very well with any
other ferret that would be friends so it happens indiscriminately to
ferrets.

Test new ones to be sure. You never know. Kodo had some of that towards
Bud, but they eventually became friends and there were no issues.

Gordon, Peekaboo and Pester

Rev. J Gordon Bengtson
Aarrow-Ranch Aviation
Mechanicsville, Virginia 23111

[Posted in FML 6225]