Post by chaosmom on Oct 10, 2020 13:20:49 GMT -5
Hello! I am new to the forum but not completely new to ferrets. At the moment we have two noodles - Marici ('Rici), a rescued girl around 2 years old who we got a year ago in August; and Kokopelli (Koko), a 3-month-old pet store baby boy I got about 2 weeks ago.
We had a little rescued girl, Celene, a few years ago and I fell completely in love with ferrets. She was an adult when we took her in and was severely overweight. We got her on healthy food with lots of playtime, and she lost weight and was the sweetest, cuddly buddy until we lost her - she was fine and energetic one night and the next morning she was lethargic and the afternoon she had passed. The vet looked at her in the morning and could find nothing aside from her clear lethargy... He gave her a shot to try to help, but it did not. My daughter and I held her the whole day. After we lost her, we had a big hole in our household, despite living on a farm full of critters.
Last year, my brother gave me the wonderful gift of finding 'Rici and bringing her to me on my birthday. She was about a year old (so the people said) and had awful manners. She bit people all the time and threw tantrums constantly. She clearly had trust issues and took so much energy to work with, she was the opposite of Celine. But I worked with her for hours every day, and was bitten a billion times, and with time, she came to trust me and I her. She is now an absolute sweetheart. She plays and plays, without biting, and she comes to her name, climbs and does high fives for dehydrated chicken. I'm in the middle of building her a climbing tunnel on the walls in my study (where she plays for hours every day); she comes with me to my greenhouse where she gets to dig while I take care of my plants (she has quite the digging skill!); she rides on my shoulder while I take care of the outside animals; and everyone in the household loves to get some playtime with her when they get a chance. She tries to play with the assorted rescue farm cats when they are in with us. Only one of them responds nicely - the others just hiss and run away from her. So... I have been considering getting her a ferret buddy for a little while, but I was worried about messing up a good thing.
I never planned to buy a pet store ferret ... but when I saw this little buddy, I couldn't resist him. Koko is sweet, cuddly, clumsy, and ridiculous. He occasionally has a bit of a tantrum over food, but that is quickly getting better. I have never had a ferret this young before so there are some things I didn't expect, but he is fitting in well and learning quickly.
They are getting along pretty well overall - I am experienced at introducing new critter buddies to each-other, so I know to go slowly, supervise, and make sure they each know they have a safe space. 'Rici is learning to be gentle with him and the two mostly do very well together. The only issue I do not know how to overcome at all is with Koko sucking on 'Rici's ears when she gets tired and tries to lay down with him. She will take a rest from playing and want to cuddle with him, and he will for a moment, then he climbs on her and sucks on her ears. She shoves him away and hisses but he won't stop unless I physically pick him up. Generally he then will fall asleep in my sleeve... I figure it seems like a comfort behavior, and I worry that it is because he may have been taken from mom too early (which I hate). I want to provide him with another option that won't result in an ear infection or an angry big sis. I cannot come up with any option that helps. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks!
Chaos Mom
We had a little rescued girl, Celene, a few years ago and I fell completely in love with ferrets. She was an adult when we took her in and was severely overweight. We got her on healthy food with lots of playtime, and she lost weight and was the sweetest, cuddly buddy until we lost her - she was fine and energetic one night and the next morning she was lethargic and the afternoon she had passed. The vet looked at her in the morning and could find nothing aside from her clear lethargy... He gave her a shot to try to help, but it did not. My daughter and I held her the whole day. After we lost her, we had a big hole in our household, despite living on a farm full of critters.
Last year, my brother gave me the wonderful gift of finding 'Rici and bringing her to me on my birthday. She was about a year old (so the people said) and had awful manners. She bit people all the time and threw tantrums constantly. She clearly had trust issues and took so much energy to work with, she was the opposite of Celine. But I worked with her for hours every day, and was bitten a billion times, and with time, she came to trust me and I her. She is now an absolute sweetheart. She plays and plays, without biting, and she comes to her name, climbs and does high fives for dehydrated chicken. I'm in the middle of building her a climbing tunnel on the walls in my study (where she plays for hours every day); she comes with me to my greenhouse where she gets to dig while I take care of my plants (she has quite the digging skill!); she rides on my shoulder while I take care of the outside animals; and everyone in the household loves to get some playtime with her when they get a chance. She tries to play with the assorted rescue farm cats when they are in with us. Only one of them responds nicely - the others just hiss and run away from her. So... I have been considering getting her a ferret buddy for a little while, but I was worried about messing up a good thing.
I never planned to buy a pet store ferret ... but when I saw this little buddy, I couldn't resist him. Koko is sweet, cuddly, clumsy, and ridiculous. He occasionally has a bit of a tantrum over food, but that is quickly getting better. I have never had a ferret this young before so there are some things I didn't expect, but he is fitting in well and learning quickly.
They are getting along pretty well overall - I am experienced at introducing new critter buddies to each-other, so I know to go slowly, supervise, and make sure they each know they have a safe space. 'Rici is learning to be gentle with him and the two mostly do very well together. The only issue I do not know how to overcome at all is with Koko sucking on 'Rici's ears when she gets tired and tries to lay down with him. She will take a rest from playing and want to cuddle with him, and he will for a moment, then he climbs on her and sucks on her ears. She shoves him away and hisses but he won't stop unless I physically pick him up. Generally he then will fall asleep in my sleeve... I figure it seems like a comfort behavior, and I worry that it is because he may have been taken from mom too early (which I hate). I want to provide him with another option that won't result in an ear infection or an angry big sis. I cannot come up with any option that helps. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks!
Chaos Mom
