Gone Deaf?

[Deleted]

I strongly suspect that my Miri (6y.o.) has gone deaf. She hasn't reacted to any noises that I made behind her, she isn't interested in the crinkling of the treat bag everyone else comes running, but she won't wake up, even if it's right over her head.

She has also become a lot more vocal in her interactions with the other ferrets. Before I only ever heard her squeak quietly, when she was playing with Zack. Now she screams and squeals and squeaks when in similar situations. There is some rough play but nothing aggressive or dangerous, usually nobody bothers her for a wrestling match.


Is there anything I can do to make her life more comfortable? I have interacted with deaf ferrets before, but not on a long term basis. Other than to try and not startle her, is there anything else I can do?

[Desiree]

I'm not sure how to help here but I'll give my experience with my deafies. 2 out of my 4 are deaf but there deafness is not new to them and I'm not sure if it will affect her differently. Mine are incredibly hard to startle. I can pick up at any point, as long as Arbor doesn't have food in her mouth and they both are pretty chill about it. Arbor is very loud too. We actually had to move their cage out of our room so we could get sleep. It was fine in there for months but with her, she just squeals and squawks and chatters all the time.

The best thing for her is finding things that interest her. Riot is often bored, he flat ferrets a lot and it's hard to get him interested in things. He loves plastic bags so we let him play with those supervised. I play with him a lot, he loves my rings on my fingers.