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Post by pourma on Oct 7, 2021 6:36:23 GMT -5
Hello Everyone, Thought it best to introduce my new not for profit business consisting of two 12 week old hobs. I've named them Fitz and Koda. Fitz after the character Fitz Chivalry Farseer due to his insane battle energy and a white bit of hair on his head. Koda is named after... Koda from brother bear. Koda being the little bear. I also have a dog called Bear so... Koda is the 'little bear' =D. I am from the UK and they were picked up from a local hobbyist breeder 3 days ago. They are not the tamest individuals I must admit and we have some training to go through, but with all the information on this forum and in other places I think I will be fine. Koda is playful but careful. He nibbles and does draw blood on occassion, but he isn't out for carnage. Fitz on the otherhand... I am convinced he wants to put me in my place. He plays a lot and i'm fairly sure he wants to play with me to. But my hands + Fitz = Bite, every single time without fail. Whilst Fitz is playing with Koda with battle armor the biting looks playful and they both mouth eachother. Fitz will bound/hop over to me, so I join in. Hand on floor, I make mock charges at him which he will either hop back from or try and jump on my hand. I can get him to chase my hand then wrestle with it, but his teeth are sinking into something everytime and he isn't soft about it like Koda. Another thing I need to get them used to is my schedule. They are up at 6am on the dot making a racket and are bed ready around 9:30pm. I would like to keep them up a bit to shift their schedule a little bit later. They are housed in a budget ferretnation copy cat ( LittleFriends Aventura) which is nice. Although I have realised I can't even diy fleece liners as the second full length tray has the hole cutout within the piece rather than on the edge like a ferret nation. Their litter training is going well to be honest. That surprised me because the morning after their first night with me they pood everywhere. Through the bars in two places, and a bit ended up on every floor apart from the top shelf. Fitz even pood next to the water bowl... THE WATER BOWL. It's 19th century London all over again. Anywho, thanks for having me. |
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Post by abbeytheferret6 on Oct 7, 2021 9:12:16 GMT -5
Hi and welcome to forum and congrats on new ferret family.
Ferrets are early risers i do not know if you can get that out of them:))
You may have to ignore or move cage away from you. Maybe someone else has a suggestion that will work.
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Post by abbeytheferret6 on Oct 7, 2021 16:43:25 GMT -5
I have rigged my Ferret Nation so i have a full top floor. Ferret goes from one floor to other by way of tube(I close the blankets about him at night to shield him from lights as he is in the living room right now).  |
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Post by pourma on Oct 8, 2021 7:50:48 GMT -5
Ferret goes from one floor to other by way of tube I was looking at doing a remote litter box. Merging these two projects together seems very doable. Seems like such an oversight for my cage designers. I guess it's cheaper to do it the way they did though. |
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Post by Charlie on Oct 8, 2021 11:03:41 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum!! We like pictures here!  We would love to see them! Sounds like you may need to do a bit more nip training with Fitz and keep a toy between your hand and Fitz. If he bits too hard then you can put him in a sin bin for 2 minutes then let him out to play again. But what I did was every time he bit too hard I would say ouch loud and get up and leave him. He soon realized it was no fun so he learned to play nice. Mind you, you only got your ferrets a few days ago so they still have some adjusting to their new home too. Ferrets are crepuscular so they are most active at dust and dawn. They can adjust a bit to your schedule but they will still get up early. I just feed mine during that time because he's hungry usually. lol It'll be hard to keep them awake longer because they usually go off and go to sleep on their own when they've had enough. lol |
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Post by pourma on Oct 10, 2021 2:58:57 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum!! We like pictures here! We would love to see them! Thanks for having me. Pictures inbound =D, whilst sleeping because these are the only non blurry images I have =D. This is Koda, the loveable little bear who is a bundle of joy.  This is Fitz, a feisty ferret focused for fighting. His nipping has improved over these 5/6 days, I can see great progress over a longer period of time. But my hands... oh the humanity =D.  This is their home for now, I want to do a remote litterbox and also figure out a way to sleeve these trays. I plan to move out of my parents' house sometime next year. When I do, these boys will be getting their own room.  |
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Post by unclejoe on Oct 10, 2021 12:57:37 GMT -5
I had me one silver mitt like Fitz, and that dude was trouble, by far the smartest ferret I had of 30. He knew exactly how hard he could bite to make me yelp. I am glad Fitz is progressing. Give it time.
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Post by lyles on Oct 11, 2021 1:48:22 GMT -5
Very cute babies.
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Post by abbeytheferret6 on Oct 11, 2021 6:35:34 GMT -5
They are so precious.
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Post by unclejoe on Oct 11, 2021 14:47:49 GMT -5
I never bothered with fitted bedding for the floors. we use pine pellets for bedding and that gets tracked around, plus whenever there is an out-of-box accident, it makes it necessary to change the floor mat. For a while a couple were so bad we had to line the cage with newspaper
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Post by Charlie on Oct 14, 2021 19:52:41 GMT -5
Ooooh those babies are cute!! But then again aren't they all so cute anyways? hehe
That cage is big enough for now for the 2 ferrets until you get your own place. It's almost like a ferret nation! You may want to cover the ladders in their cage with tube socks so they don't get their legs caught in the ladders. That's a quick fix. You may also want to get a bigger litter pan for them. I used a kitty litter pan from the dollar store. I found the bigger the tray is the better chances of them going in them rather then beside them. lol
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Post by pourma on Oct 15, 2021 2:20:48 GMT -5
That cage is big enough for now for the 2 ferrets until you get your own place. It's almost like a ferret nation! It's slightly larger dimensions than the ferret/critter nation which is why I thought I had found a bargain =D. I'll get some protection for the ladders. Also, there is a full tray litter pan at the bottom. I need to get more of them and get rid of the corner ones. Koda will use the corner litter trays, but not Fitz. They mostly use the corner litter trays to play in... =D |
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Post by Charlie on Oct 16, 2021 22:12:47 GMT -5
That cage is big enough for now for the 2 ferrets until you get your own place. It's almost like a ferret nation! It's slightly larger dimensions than the ferret/critter nation which is why I thought I had found a bargain =D. I'll get some protection for the ladders. Also, there is a full tray litter pan at the bottom. I need to get more of them and get rid of the corner ones. Koda will use the corner litter trays, but not Fitz. They mostly use the corner litter trays to play in... =D Oh, I can see the litter tray on the bottom now!! It's blue! Yeah, my ferret played in the corner litter tray too and put blankets in it. When I switched to a much larger rectangular tray he used it properly. lol Wow, that's a big cage then if it's bigger then a ferret/critter nation cage! You could fit 4 ferrets in there. Looks like you did a great job with the DIY fleece liners and cut your own holes in there. Do you let the ferrets out to roam around your room? I first only allowed my ferret access the the room his cage is in which is the spare room. When he got older and I ferret proofed more of the house, then I started letting him roam around the rest of the house. I still kept watch over him because I know they look for trouble. Now he has full access to the house when I'm home and he only stays in his cage when he eats and when I'm at work. |
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Post by pourma on Oct 18, 2021 4:04:02 GMT -5
I never bothered with fitted bedding for the floors. I am starting to think they are more hassel than they are worth. It retains poo and wee and doesn't wipe clean meaning it needs a laundry often. Downside, my cage doesn't have deep bins and wouldn't hold any loose bedding matterial even if I wanted to use it. I think I will just buy more of the lining sheets I am using so that I can rotate them through the laundry more often without there being an awkward moment in the middle where there are no sheets in the cage. |
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Post by pourma on Oct 18, 2021 4:11:46 GMT -5
It's slightly larger dimensions than the ferret/critter nation which is why I thought I had found a bargain =D. I'll get some protection for the ladders. Also, there is a full tray litter pan at the bottom. I need to get more of them and get rid of the corner ones. Koda will use the corner litter trays, but not Fitz. They mostly use the corner litter trays to play in... =D Oh, I can see the litter tray on the bottom now!! It's blue! Yeah, my ferret played in the corner litter tray too and put blankets in it. When I switched to a much larger rectangular tray he used it properly. lol Wow, that's a big cage then if it's bigger then a ferret/critter nation cage! You could fit 4 ferrets in there. Looks like you did a great job with the DIY fleece liners and cut your own holes in there. Do you let the ferrets out to roam around your room? I first only allowed my ferret access the the room his cage is in which is the spare room. When he got older and I ferret proofed more of the house, then I started letting him roam around the rest of the house. I still kept watch over him because I know they look for trouble. Now he has full access to the house when I'm home and he only stays in his cage when he eats and when I'm at work. In regards to the size, it's only marginally bigger than the Critter Nation, talking centimeters in each dimension. I let them roam around my room when I am home (for the most part). I put them in the cage when I go to sleep, and when I feed them. In the morning I feed them before I go to work, but after work I let them out for an hour or so, then put them back into their cage to eat. Then let them out after a while to let them do their business in the cage. Letting them roam around this house is not going to happen, we have a family dog and I can't trust him not to react badly when Fitz inevitable nips him. My room isn't uber ferret proofed, so if I am home but out my room for too long I'll cage em for a bit. They get about 5 hours on average split over the morning and evening of attended out of cage time. Once I move out, I plan to dedicate an entire room to them which would have much more enrichment than my current room. They just dig through my socks and get underneath everything at the moment in between playing with eachother. |
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