Ferret Stash Toy Alternatives?

[vii]

Hi so I have 3 beautiful babies and while one of them is easy and enjoys a lot of the toys given to her the other two ferrets are a bit more picky. This is purely in terms of stashing they have other things they enjoy like a little maze, tunnels, paper bags, boxes, blankets, egg pit, etc. Unfortunately the one thing they seem to go crazy for and try to stash immediately is...foam. Which for obvious reasons isn't really the best thing for them to play with. Found a hidden squishy totally decimated before. Fortunately the ferret is fine, I found all the pieces and she's just been chilling and I've now been keeping the squishies in a much better spot. I've tried plastic balls, various cat toys (wand, toy mice, feather stick, balls with bells), plushies, crochet egg, and a crinkle ball, at least those are what I remember off the top of my head. So I was wondering if you guys happened to know good alternatives they might be interested in? Thanks in advance

[unclejoe]

Welcome aboard.
You've tried nearly everything.
I picked up a hand made crochet bell egg with a 5 foot crochet lanyard at the Buckeye Bash a few years ago and every ferret that has seen in it has stashed it and every cat will play with it.
Ferrets have their preferences. Keep trying. lol
IMG_2252 by unclejoe1158, on Flickr
IMG_2254 by unclejoe1158, on Flickr

[abbeytheferret6]

Mine is a stasher too. I buy the flat toys with embroidered eyes. Some have the crinkly paper in them. 
My guy likes to play with the human and that's about it. I would take him out for a walk, but I have 4 feral cats in my yard.
Have you tried the long grain rice box? I have never done it for fear something will go up in the nostril.
You could scatter the toys and let them re-stash.

[msav]

every Ferret is different. some like to forage some not so much. out of all of the ferrets we have had we could always find at least one type of toy that they like. However some ferrets are stashers and they will stash anything. a couple of toys that our single stashers would stash were rope balls, stuffed Lufas, the little cheap cheap mice with the digital chirp in them,

you may have to experiment with different textures and noises you never know what will click with them.

For general foraging toys, Derby eggs are good, a few of my ferrets love the stuffed elephant with crinkle ears. we recently found them in the bargain bin at petco, so we got 2 more, they are an instant hit.

after having ferrets for over 15 years we have boxes and boxes of toys, some of which we have not even unboxed for the new batch of ferrets yet.

[vii]

Hi thanks for the replies everyone. I'll definitely keep trying more things.

And yes they actually had a rice box before I went with an egg pit. Unfortunately one ferret made the connection that rice feels similar to the litter pellets. Had made many attempts of cleaning the box, replacing rice, keeping an eye on them in the box. Running them to the bathroom if they did so much as squat. Unfortunately it's too associated with bathroom at this point thay two of my ferrets refuse to stand on it anymore (since I only put them on it a bit after they used the bathroom). One of them still played with it (she has no standards). She actually did this very impressive maneuver where while in the rice box in one graceful spin picked up a stashy, semi squatted and pissed, and then immediately jumped out of the box to stash her findings. It honestly took me a second to even realize she pissed it happened so fast. Again grossed out and cleaned the box, but very impressed. But yes they have an egg box now. And I do try to scatter their things every evening or morning before they get out so they immediately have something to do. And they do have crinkle plushies I think these guys in particular might just not be a fan of any sort of fabric in mouth. (Except feet in socks once in a while =w=)

And yeah my two picky ferrets in particular are seniors and while I wouldn't mind if they just continued to mosey around they do indeed like stashing things. I've only seen them run for consistently for a few things bathroom, and a chance to grab foam. How I found out they really like foam is because they like to stash the handles of the cat wands I had with had foam nubs (I don't leave them out anymore). But yeah it was pretty funny at one point seeing a little ferret tug of war. A pretty one-sided one poor ferret basically got dragged across the room hissing the whole way.

I did actually have this hard rubber dog toy laying around that I did try with them today. And turns out they really liked it and accepted it as stash immediately. It is one of those feeding chew toys meant for dogs so hopefully it'll be fine but I will keep an eye on them and make sure they truly can't damage it even if they tried. Will definitely try your guys suggestions though, thanks for the advice

[Corvidophile]

You mean like a rubber Kong or similar? They can and will nibble bits of rubber off that, so be careful, supervised play with it only. Yeah, you’ve gotta be really careful with foam, it gets stuck in their intestines really easily and attempts by the body to squeeze it out are futile because it just squishes in place. Try secondhand stores for baby toys, I’ve had good luck finding appropriate toys that way.

My ferret’s fave toy for playing with me is a turkey feather duster, and favorite thing to stash is… the toilet brush! I bought him a new toilet brush to redirect his attention to it, but he only wants the one that’s been in the toilet.

[abbeytheferret6]

I have done the plastic tray of water with plastic measuring spoons. The spoons usually sink. My guy dips his head in several times and gets about every one of them out.

[unclejoe]

I got a different brand of puppy pads for the ferrets I left the open box on the floor instead of putting it on the shelf. I just caught Lily stealing one and when I tracked her down I found eight of them behind the couch. 30 ferrets and that's the first time I've seen that.

[caitmonster]

Howdy and welcome to you and your babies! Socks that lose their mate in the wash become stash toys in our house; we tie them in a knot so we know they've been "retired."