The most frequent health related phone call I get is “I think my ferret ate something he shouldn’t” or “My ferret ate…… and passed it, will he be ok?”

This remedy deals with your ferret eating material or very soft vinyl.

So, you find the bedding with a chunk missing.   You pick up the toys at the end of the day and notice the toy mouse no longer has a tail.  You go to change the dirty litter box and you notice a very colorful poopie. *Later on in the week, you will be folding your underwear from the dyer and discover your ferret has sampled  several pairs-now you know where that rainbow colored poop came from”.

If your ferret is still eating and drinking and is NOT lethargic you have a window where you can apply these steps at home. If your ferret has had one mucky poop and the rest look normal he most likely has passed the chewed matrial. If your ferret is pooping long stringy lead pencil sized poops then most likely he has a partial blockage.

Ok, this is what you can do until you take your ferret to the vet. Give your ferret a 3 inch ribbon of cat hairball remedy; malt flavor.  This is something you should have in the house at all times if you have a ferret. This is a product you should be using weekly in a dime size portion to help your ferret pass any ingested fur.  Don’t have hairball remedy. Ok, a great substitute is plain old Vaseline or petroleum jelly. Hairball remedy is petroleum based with flavoring.

What will NOT work is using vegetable oil.  The petroleum jelly coat’s the item and makes it pass smoothly and gently.  The oil will make it oily but not coat the item.

You will want to repeat the 3 inch ribbon about 4 hours later.  Meanwhile you will do the unthinkable unless you are a ferret owner.  You will pick up the ferret poop, place in your palm and gently run warm water on it to dissolve the poop.  You will extract the pieces of material and match them to the hole in the bedding/hammock/sock…

Once you have all the little pieces to fill the hole you are home free. When the ferret has a poop with no bits of material in it you can usually figure that he has passed everything.  The choice will then be up to you if you still want the ferret checked out by the vet.

CAVEAT: If you suspect your ferret as swallowed something hard like a piece off a plastic or rubber toy, then your ferret needs immediate attention from your vet.  You don’t want to push the hard plastic into the colon and rip something!