Chewing and bullying

[Deleted]

Good day all my lovely carpet shark loving friends.....thank you allowing me to join in on the forum....

This is a 2 in 1 question, kinda....back story......we got a furbaby back in january, she was only 3Mo old when we got her, she is healthy and happy, however he she wasn't really getting any bigger even though she has been eating every day..we did notice she wasn't playing as much when she was out and seemed kinda bored. We want the best for our little one, so we got her a friend last week, he is 3 months younger, and already twice her size. We were a little concerned about his size at first, but the first few days were great!! They got along and were playing with each other and sleeping together..

questions: in the last 2 days he has started almost being a bully towards our first ferret. Won't let her fall alseep, keeps wrestling overly rough with her and keeps bitting her ears and neck and making her cry, he was so bad last night we had to put him in the kennel over night 😥  when my husband let them both out this morning he went right back to bullying and bitting her....the second thing, is he keeps chewing EVERYTHING...he has chewed up all of the soft toys we already had for our other ferret and he has already destroyed one corner in our leather ottoman...I scruff him and tell him no, no chew and put him in a 2min timeout, but that hasn't deterred him....

Any help or advice regarding this would be very helpful....thanks!

[Heather]

Hi and welcome
Have you had your wee girlie checked out by the vet? A young female who has low energy is a concern.
Your boy is perfectly normal....which goes back to is there a problem with your little girl? Your wee girlie should have grown some from Jan at 3 months to now. It won't be huge amounts but you should notice a considerable weight gain. The difference between sprite and gibb is considerable....usually.
He wants her to play. He's a kit. She's older but she's still a kit. They should be both going rounds for at least an hour at a time. His chewing is normal, which is why kits are not allowed to play with a lot of the toys we often choose for them. Is he hungry? A kit should be fed 4x a day. What meaty bones have you got him chewing? This helps him get through the rough chewy stage, having appropriate things to actually sink his teeth into. He's normal. I"m concerned for your little girl, she should be driving you insane. I realise there are differences between ferrets, it's the same as people but even a calm kit at this age pushes the limits
ciao

[Deleted]

We don't do raw or prey food, so he doesn't get the bones to chew. My husband has issues touching raw meat. We do have the chewy treat sticks, but he doesn't seem very interested in them. They have tunnels, balls with bells, fuzzy toys that crinkle, boxes to climb in, blankets to borrow in, old socks knotted to chew and drag around, paper bags to play in....I haven't really been seeing him eat, I know our girl does because she chews her bowl...

[Deleted]

She does drive us insane, when she out of the cage, she digs and climbs and is always trying to get where she is not allowed...it's when they are in the cage together..she knows when it's cage time, that means to relax and go to sleep, which she does...it's out boy that hasn't figured that out yet..I just don't want him to hurt her...we haven't taken her to a vet yet.(apparently they have stopped making the shots for ferrets in our area, and the vets want to use dog or cat shots, and I'm not comfortable with that) but I do plan on taking her in for a check up when I go back to work