Edible Dangers in Your Home - Koda's Catalog

[katt]

Many of you are aware that my ferret Koda is a notorious chewer. While I know that not all ferrets are as bad as him, I strongly believe that everyone should assume their ferret could, at any moment, become as bad as him. All it takes is once for a blockage to happen. Ferret proofing is super, super important. If you think something is ferret proofed, it is not. It's a constant trial and error, something you are never done with. One of Koda's recent debacles inspired me to create this thread to help build awareness of the types of things you should watch for that your ferrets can (and WILL) ingest.

These are just a FEW of the many things that Koda has destroyed over the years...

Child proof bottle, cleaned and filled with veggie noodles to make a rattle toy. Another identical rattle toy like this was OPENED by my boys, and they ate the noodles from inside. Thankfully no blockage...



Chew Marks - this is now a supervised play only toy.


Rope toys are no longer allowed except under close, ACTIVE supervision...



Poor Giraffe lol


Any toy's eyeballs are fair game for Koda, even if they aren't plastic.


Laptop case - zipper, foam padding = DANGEROUS







This toy used to have small tennis balls (dangerous!!) on it. I cut them off. It's now in the toy dungeon bc of the rope though.



Electronic toys - small parts inside = DANGEROUS




The mattress...there used to be a thick elastic cord running between those 2 holes. Elastic - rubber. We cut it off. He chewed the mattress as well as you can see... We also have no mattress pad because they dug it to shreds and the fluff was dangerous.



Heated Blanket Cord - even stuffed between the mattress and box spring it wasn't safe enough


This used to have rubber feet on it...they were removed.



All cords are fair game



He chewed on the sides of the clip too


Laptop feet - all removed



Stuffed animals with plastic eyes and noses - all eyes and noses are fair game, if they are small enough to be swallowed, they can and will cause a blockage. Super dangerous.





Drawstrings.




After it was surgically removed from his intestines...







Hard plastic toy...not hard enough. I couldn't sink my nails into the bottle tip, it felt totally solid. Clearly it was not. If they can do this to HARD PLASTIC, and BONES, what do you think they can do to so called "indestructible" rubber? Just think about it...





See the cabinet? See the cord? He climbed on top of the counter (I'm convinced he can levitate, no clue how he got up there to this day) and chewed the charge cord into a zillion pieces....



Rubber feet are on EVERYTHING. Electronics, stools, furniture.... This was the piece we thought he had eaten when we used Hydrogen Peroxide to induce vomiting. Something like this would absolutely cause a blockage if ingested.



I thought Shane had put Koda away, but he got distracted...we went upstairs to get lunch and came back down to find Koda loose in the basement. This was in the hallway and I noticed it was missing. After a thorough search I found the next 2 items under the cage. Thank heavens he apparently decided he didn't like almonds or mint or he would have a blockage AND be in kidney failure...

Luckily it was smashed thoroughly, but none was eaten.







Electronics are never safe. NEVER let your ferrets play with or stash your iPod, Phone, etc covers. It's dangerous.



Cords - fair game if they are reachable










This only takes a few SECONDS...



ANY and ALL rubber is ABSOLUTELY, 110%, NEVER EVER SAFE. Period. I don't care how indestructible it says it is, if you let your ferrets play with anything rubber, you are putting their lives in very serious danger.

All it takes is a VERY small amount to cause a life-threatening blockage...

[katt]

Nothing is safe (from Koda) lol

[Heather]

Oh, wow....I knew he was bad but not that bad. I've had a couple of chewers, Yuri comes to mind. He's the only adult I've ever had that chewed electrical cords. Kits do this all the time but adults not so much. Mayhem was my blanket chewer. He'd go months without any issue and then I'd find half the sheet in their cage gone (he'd eat the center out of the sheet, you'd never know it was gone until you'd change out the bedding). They really are their own worst enemy
ciao

[katt]

Oh but he IS THAT bad. This is just an infinitely small sample of the things he has tried to eat over the last ~4 years. Our room is ferret proofed, but nothing is EVER Koda proofed. He always finds something...

[unclejoe]

That boy is OCD

[kraesmom]

Foster gets up on the bathroom counter by jumping up on the toilet lid and then onto the counter.

[katt]

Mar 16, 2014 19:38:31 GMT -5 kraesmom said:

Foster gets up on the bathroom counter by jumping up on the toilet lid and then onto the counter.

There is nothing he can use as a launching platform within 5 feet of the counter.

[kraesmom]

Mar 16, 2014 19:52:56 GMT -5 katt said:

Mar 16, 2014 19:38:31 GMT -5 kraesmom said:

Foster gets up on the bathroom counter by jumping up on the toilet lid and then onto the counter.

There is nothing he can use as a launching platform within 5 feet of the counter.

LOL! In that case, I am at a loss. 

[msav]

WOW, Koda is one expensive ferret.

have you tried using bitterent on the wires. All the wires in my house get a good coat of bitterent.

I always know when I miss a cable as they will have little puncture holes in them.

[goingpostal]

Ah ferrets, what an adventure! It is just nuts what that ferret wants to eat and chew, I'm glad none of mine have been rubber eaters but I do not trust them with little stuffed toys anymore, Tweek loved his "babies" but one of the others tried to get the eyes off and was chewing holes in them. Pandora ate some bedding as a kit, scared the crap out of me.

[Sherry]

The woman who started the original HFF, Guili, had a 6 yr old ferret who had never, ever chewed anything his entire life. He simply wasn't a chewer. He ultimately died from a blockage from suddenly taking it into his head to chew and eat a cord.

[katt]

Mar 18, 2014 8:24:57 GMT -5 Sherry said:

The woman who started the original HFF, Guili, had a 6 yr old ferret who had never, ever chewed anything his entire life. He simply wasn't a chewer. He ultimately died from a blockage from suddenly taking it into his head to chew and eat a cord.

Thank you Sherry!!!!!!! THAT is exactly the point I am always trying to make. You should Assume that at ANY point your ferret could eat any of te above items (and more). The whole point of his thread is to show people what they CAN (and will!) eat. Ferret proofing saves lives!

[msav]

None of my ferrets have ever eaten anything (thank god) That does not stop me from walking around the house picking up things that are not ferret friendly. I always announce when I find something so everyone will know what is or is not ferret friendly. Things fall on the floor get tracked into the house. Brought in the house by the dog. Even though we have made our home ferret resistant (no such thing as ferret proof) there are always new stuff you need to watch for.

[Deleted]

Our Stitchy was a chewer, he as 1,000% OBSESSED with anything rubber! The plus was all you had to do was squeak a toy and he would come running (he couldn't have it of course) so it made it nice when he would fall asleep in random places. The bad part was our oldest son was about 9 months old and still had a pacifier and bottle. We went through more nipples during that stage, it was horrible. We finally switched him to cuppies just to save money!
One day we had put Donnie down for a nap in his crib and that was the best time to let Stitch roam. Well one of us must have not shut the door to his room because we heard a toe curling scream! We rushed to his room to find Stitch latched to his nose, shaking him! The best thing we can guess was that Stitchy (who was not at all aggressive) went for the paci and missed and got his nose and was shaking to get the thing free. It was a scarey experience because of course his nose bleed for ever and it even blacked one of his eyes. Luckily Donnie was not afraid of the ferret after the experience, but needless to say, he was weened off the pacies very soon to get them out of the house.

[Deleted]

Wow Katt, I knew he was a chewer but THIS much!!!
My Chestnut is not a chewer either, but last June he decided to eat the side of my bra... It was a huge piece. I don't even know how he managed to eat all of that... I kept the piece he ate as a reminder.