The main reason I'm not an advocate of nose thumping or flicking isn't
that it's cruel--unless you're hitting your ferret very hard!--it's that
it doesn't work.  And, in some cases, as people have mentioned, it can
actually make the poor fuzzy fear-aggressive.  They need to trust us.  Most
ferrets don't see a flick on the nose as an aggressive move, but the ones
who do will be hurt that we want to hurt them.
 
I've raised a few ferrets, as well as adopted a couple, and in most cases
biting is more about play than anything else.  Abused animals are another
story, of course, or those who are fear-biters.  In my experience, I've
been nipped too hard by ferrets who are playing and don't understand the
limits or get carried away.  I've also been bitten by a sick ferret who was
very upset that we weren't making him feel better fast enough.  Obviously,
in that case, hitting him on the nose wouldn't have done anything.  Feeding
him duck soup did.
 
As far as excited nippers go, I've found that nose thumping usually just
teaches them that it's all right to play rough.  If you watch two ferrets
wrestling, you'll see that they're a lot rougher with each other than with
us, which is one of the reasons we need to teach them our limits.  Most of
the time, mine seem to think a tap on the nose is just another game.  My
solution to the problem of teaching kits not to nip has been to gently take
hold of the little brat's lower jaw; since my finger's generally in his
mouth at the time, that's pretty easy.  And then I hang on, and say "Don't
bite" in a nice firm tone of voice.  They really hate not being able to
spit out your finger.
 
Be careful--never hang on too hard, and let go if it seems like you might
be hurting your ferret.  The idea is to keep their attention on what
they're doing wrong--which is biting your finger--by not letting them stop
biting your finger.
 
It seems to work.  I don't have a ferret I wouldn't feel perfectly
comfortable handing to a five-year-old.  Of course, none of mine came to
me from particularly bad situations, and most I've had all their lives.
Biting and nipping are two very different actions, with different motives.
Ferrets aren't naturally vicious, any more than dogs are (or people), so a
ferret that really bites is reacting abnormally to a situation, and it's
usually a learned response.  A nip on the toes--even a hard one--is just
an invitation to play.  (Or an attempt to run off with mom's toes.)
 
Jen with Winter (helping me type), Tesseract, Molly, Gibber, Simon, and
Amadeo.
[Posted in FML issue 2660]