HELP! Stashing raw meat

[Deleted]

My boy Freddy is stashing his raw meat around the house 🤢🤢 they are free roaming to the living room kitchen and my bedroom 24/7 but now I have to confine to cage when feeding and have to remove any extra or it gets stashed idk where 😳 Does anyone have any other suggestions!?

[bitbyter]

Stashing is part of ferret nature. Unfortunately, you are not going to be able to stop it. The best solution I've found is that if they are stashing food and not eating it within 24hrs, you are feeding to much. Cut back bit by bit until they are eating whatever they are stashing.

[LindaM]

If he's anything like my alpha girlie Athena, she simply prefers to take some meat to eat elsewhere, she will start her stashing with the very first piece of meat she takes from the bowl, so in this case, they aren't fed too much, she just likes to go eat somewhere else. She only sometimes goes past that 24-hour mark for eating it all as she also likes to save a bit of meat (sometimes it's even stolen from another's bowl) and let it turn into jerky, at which stage the boys end up stealing it from her stash to munch up. Our home is kept at cool, so instead of rotting, the meat just kinda air-dries instead of actually rotting, I can't say the same for organs or hearts though, yuck, I make sure that doesn't get stashed.

You can create a feeding den (allows for a controlled stashing spot), in which they can safely stash and eat food. You can use cardboard boxes or even modify a plastic storage container for this purpose and put a food bowl in there for a while to show that they can have food in there and that it's safe from one another, thus each needs their own feeding den preferably.

[katt]

A feeding den is super easy to make and makes a HUGE difference in the amount of stashing. It won't eliminate it, but it should significantly reduce it. You can make one with pretty much anything - dark dens are typically preferred. A cardboard box, a Rubbermaid bin with a hole cut in the side, etc. Many people also add shower hooks in the feeding dens and actually hook the meat in the den so it is more difficult to run off with.

[Sherry]

I also feed a lean day a week which encourages them to clean up their stashes.

[abbeytheferret6]

I was feeding mine breakfast in the kitchen pantry. Stash was ending up in the sun room behind the couch(near the kitchen). However, I am feeding them in their ferret room---a bedroom they free roam at night. It has a feeding den, chester drawer, and some open cages. They will not make the long trip to the sun room. The blaze already takes food under drawer to eat and sable eats in the den or in the open cages. I have closed off the x-tra bedroom near the ferret room. Stash was piling under wrought iron bed---nightmare moving that bed. They were by-passing the den for under the bed.

Feeding dens in a particular room and closing off adjacent room has helped me.
My feeding den is a drk tub flipped upside down with a cut out opening. I just put a baby blanket on floor(not fuzzy ones) and change every morning. I do it this way, so I will not have to rinse out the tub all the time --just wash the blanket. The floor underneath is vinyl, so just a wipe down occasionally.


Whoops:
Waardie just now taking her evening mousie to living room:/   I think she is heading to the sunroom.
I knew I should have cut it up. She loves stashing whole mousies. It is a little treasure but not so if all cut up. She made a liar out of me. haha. 

Sometimes you have to create boundaries or you will work yourself ragged cleaning up behind them.