Salt and Pepper-Recently Adopted

[Deleted]

Hi!

As I mentioned in my intro thread, I just recently adopted two ferrets. Salt is a large PEW male and Pepper is a small sable female. Both are fixed and descented, as per the first owner. 

They are both incredibly active and young (around 1-2 years old). Play, play, play, sleep, play, play, play. 

We got them in a small metal cage, but have since made a large (4ftx4ftx2ft) DIY cage. Here is a picture of it! 




They really enjoy having so much space to play in when we can't have them out. Since we do have cats and dogs, they are not free roaming and never will be.

Right now they are on kibble, but as soon as we move and get a stock of poultry going, we will be switching them to raw. So for now, they are eating Nature's Variety Instinct. We have also been trying to get them to eat some of the raw bites from Nature's Variety, but haven't had much success. Mixed egg is a hit though. 

At any rate, here are some cute ferrets asleep!

[Heather]

Congratulations. What cute little ones
You mention that they will never be free roaming, you don't mean that they're cage bound, do you?
ciao

[Deleted]

No, not at all. We just have to put all of the cats and dogs away while we have them out so we have to be home while they're out.

I don't believe that either the cats or the dogs would ever intentionally hurt them. But all of our cats are 10+lbs and our dogs are 60lbs and 100lbs, so it's just not safe for them to be out with them unsupervised. We keep the cats and dogs separate when we aren't home too. Again, I doubt the dogs would intentionally hurt the cats but accidents can happen at any time.

[Deleted]

Oh I love your cage Cute little ones too!

[Heather]

I just thought I'd ask. You've no idea some of the things I've seen and heard about ferret care so sometimes it sounds like a stupid question but you just never know (headwall) I agree with you regarding your little ones and their interaction with your cats and dogs.
ciao

[Deleted]

Dearie: Thank you! We worked hard on it, and it was our first large DIY project, so we did make a few miscalculations (hence why there are some small holes on the door front) but all in all it came out very nice. It has been fantastically functional as well, so now I just need to get some fleece sewn to the appropriate size for the shelves.

Heather: I can understand. When I first got my guinea pigs (about 3 years ago) I knew nothing about their care and kept them (inappropriately) in an old rat cage I had from high school. They really started my love of small exotic pets. Once I did a lot of actual research, though, it made a world of difference and I found that making DIY cages are much bigger and cheaper than pet store cages and that using fleece is better than any pet store bedding. There are a lot of misconceptions out there, and I can understand wanting to clarify that. Since my guinea pigs I've worked to do much of the research prior to bringing anything home now.

[unclejoe]

Does PEW mean pink eyed white? As in albino? Rosa, our albino, is around 2 and she's a pistol.

[Deleted]

Yea, PEW means pink eyed white. I did a little reading on ferret colors and it seems like true albinos only breed albinos, so I didn't want to call him something he might not be. PEW and albino can be two different genes. I just knew this from my guinea pig research, where PEW looks the same as an albino but albino genes in pigs is lethal, resulting in deformed and short lived pigs.