New ferret introduction & New to the forum!!

[Leah S.]

Hello everyone & happy Friday!
I’m new to the forum, & also a new ferret mommy as of October of 2017 I brought home my first baby girl who is now about to turn 7 months old. A week ago from today I brought home a little boy, (he’s not even two months yet, & small enough to still fit in one hand).
I’m curious to hear your guys’ stories about introducing a new ferret & how it went for you.
I’ve started slow, as it has only been a week. My girl Haven has been used to living alone & being the only ferret ruling the house for the last 5 months! Little boy Harvey is living in a separate cage, just because he’s still litter training & on a different diet than Haven at this time & is a lot smaller than her.
I give them short times together (no more than 30 min at a time) in neutral play areas & they are closely supervised by me, but Haven is still hissing at him a LOT & constantly trying to scruff him & bite his face. I know this can be normal at the beginning because I’ve been doing lots of research about introductions since before I brought him home. Sometimes she’ll be so rough to the point I have to separate them because he’s crying & so much smaller that I don’t want him to get hurt. What worries me is that sometimes it seems like they’re having fun together but she’s still hissing the whole time & constantly trying to get on top of him going for his neck & face. She’s never hissed much in the past other than once in a blue moon while playing with our little bishon frisée dog. (They get along so well & LOVE playing with each other.) Our dog is 11 & has grown up with plenty of rats, guinea pigs & other critters so she’s so good around both of the ferrets.
Haven is a feisty little girl & I had to work A LOT on her biting when we first got her as a kit. She still has her moments of wanting to play too rough with us even or running up & biting feet. I know this can be more common in female ferrets especially when they’re young. My male is a lot more calm & cuddly & doesn’t like to nip nearly as hard.
Any tips, ideas, or anything to help me have this process go smoothly would be greatly appreciated! I want these two to be best friends & roomates someday & I’m hoping to add another boy into the mix eventually as well!

[lee]

h*ll and welcome. In my experience of intros, I've had 1intro that was so bad they never really got on and the other intro I had went so well, it was as if they had been together from birth.
I was told as long as there is no blood or poop, let them get on with it..
Good luck and enjoy

[Miousse]

I don't have much for tips on introductions, since it's been a long while for us, but I'm sure someone has some great ideas for you. We've had them go swimmingly, and not-so-easily - but they eventually got along.

Welcome to the forum!

[Heather]

Hissing doesn't mean anything to a lot of ferrets. I had one wee lad who had it totally backward. He dooked when he was beating someone up and hissed when he was playing. That rapid fired dooking bothers me a lot more than hissing...then I know someone is going to buy it and I have to interfere. A wee girly is going to rule, there is no way around it and if she feels that naughty kit (even if he's behaving himself) isn't minding and giving the right body language she's going to beat him up. If there is no poop, pee or blood then usually they're good to go. I will add this, if the baby is constantly hiding from her or she's hunting him then he's upset and scared. If he's going back for more ...they're fine
ciao

[mermaidsirena]

Slow and frequent is what worked for us. My two were in separate cages for about three weeks until I could trust them together. We did not have much of a size difference, though, because the baby was already bigger than the adult I brought to the home!

[bishop24]

Our first ferret was mute for the first 6 months in our house but when we brought home our girl he started hissing at her. It is his way of saying “let’s play” and now they both do it 😂 I think that they are an example of two ferrets tolerating each other. They both have very different personalities and we have just had to except it. Time will tell with your two though 😉
Our intro of our third girly sorta rounded everything off. She has been challenging Flint’s dominance and the first time she let out a terrible scream. But there was no poop pee or blood so we let them be. As soon as she got out of Flints scruff she started war dancing around. Ferrets interact very differently from humans and it’s about watching and figuring it out. They like to play rough (except Missy) and communicate in... interesting ways.
Good luck!

[Sherry]

Unless someone is running and hiding and not coming back out I let them work it out.