by debferret

Safe Toys for Ferrets

Ferrets will play with just about anything you put in front of them. If you have ever owned a ferret, you know that you can put 20 great toys in front of them only to see them running off with something they have found that could be deadly if chewed.

As a shelter mom, I have had the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in fear as I am shown the newly surrendered ferret’s toys. A blockage just waiting to happen! They are quietly tossed away or donated to a dog shelter.

Have I scared the pants of you yet? Hope so, because a great homemade toy is your pants/sweats/jeans. Ferrets love to tunnel and they love crawling through the legs of your pants. You’re headed out right now to Value Village to buy up some old pairs of jeans, right?! Grab some old sweatshirts too. Not only do they love to sleep in old sweatshirts but the arms make great mini tunnels.

Other great homemade toys are:

plastic grocery bags with the handles removed to avoid strangulation. Paper bags any size, they love the crinkly noises they make any cardboard box with different shaped holes cut out – your ferrets will think of themselves as the new whack a mole as they pop out of the different holes. some of us even let our ferrets play in the plastics storage cupboard; allowing our furry to “sneak” in and spend the next 30 minutes pushing all the containers and lids out on to the floor you can play magic carpet ride by dragging an old towel across your floor with the ferret catching a ride!

There are some great safe toys that you can pick up at your local dollar store such as: jingle balls, rope toys, stuffies without beads or foam, MFA knotty knots etc etc

assortment of safe toys

maize created with plastic tubes, please note these tube are next to impossible to find now. I watch kijiji and will purchase an old unusable cage just to get the tubes!

round tunnel, elephant tunnel

hard plastic/hard rubber ring baby toys-NOT GOOD FOR FERRETS

I have taken pictures of a small display sample of bad toys for ferrets. Toys that the ferrets can chew pieces off and end up with a fatal blockage. check out my blog BAD Toys for Ferrets.

One last tip, before you give your ferret what you hope will be a fun toy ask yourself the following: can my ferret chew and swallow a piece, can my ferret strangle on cords or handles, can my ferret suffocate?

11.20.14

by debferret

I stole Mommy’s Desert!

Curled up on the couch watching TV. The different groups of ferrets had just been put back to bed and I let out Jocko for his Mommy time. This wild little boy bounced from one end of the living room to the other. Little fart makes me laugh sooo much!

I decided to have my strawberry yogurt for desert. I peeled off the lid and stirred my yogurt. Vroom, Jocko was standing at my feet begging to be picked up. Such a sweet boy!

Next thing I know he has turned himself around and he has his nose in my yogurt. Now, yogurt is actually good for ferrets. When they have diarrhea you can add yogurt to their duck soup to help put the good bacteria back in their gut.

I’m eating Mommy’s yogurt! Yummy

Had to take the picture! Well he went to town on the yogurt, not even coming up for air! After a few minutes I put him down, but he jumped back at my legs wanting more. Little piggy had slurped enough down for now, so it was bedtime for him!

Jocko polished off some of Mommy’s yogurt!

You know you are a crazy ferret mom when you share your yogurt with your ferret and then eat the rest, ferret spit be damned!

11.17.14

by debferret

You’re trying to poison me!!!

As a long term shelter mom I have given more different types of medications over the years than I can count! There is a medication prescribed to treat diarrhea that is very effective. In fact it is the only antibiotic that will treat gut issues. This medication is Metronidazole.

I must admit that when I take a shelter ferret to the vet for diarrhea I am praying that I will be prescribed something NEW. It never happens. Ferrets HATE Metronidazole with a passion.

What is my complaint with Metronidazole? Well, this medication is very, very bitter. It is also prescribed to us humans and if you have ever had the displeasure of taking it; it is like licking a sour piece of metal – horrible bitter taste! Our ferrets feel the same way.

The vet will tell you to camouflage the crushed pill in honey or jam (never peanut butter). You may get the first dose in your ferret but trust me, you will wear the second dose, and the third and the fourth……………..

Ivan before his tummy issue

Well, I had to take Ivan to the vet for diarrhea and came home with the Metronidazole! Here we go! After years of crushing pills between spoons and using dollar store crushers, I finally went out and bought myself a pestle and mortar this summer (best 10.00 investment ever). I crushed the med. and went to the fridge for some “jam”. Bridget had made some delicious Plum jam and had gifted me a small jar. When you select your masking agent you need to make sure that it will slide down the ferret’s throat safely and most importantly; QUICKLY! Peanut butter and honey coat the mouth and it takes too many licks to make it slide down the throat. Ferretone (discontinued 2020, using Salmon Oil) goes NOT mask the taste well enough. So that is why we are back to jam. You should never use a jam that can cause other issues. An example would be using Raspberry jam. Never use raspberry jam because the seeds can cause complications.

Ok, back to giving poor Ivan his meds. I have my pestle and mortar to grind the pill into FINE POWDER. I have my jam and spoon for mixing.

bitter medicine

pestle and mortar, 2 sizes

smooth sweet jam to mask the bitter taste of crushed meds

Well, so far, most of you are probably thinking, yeah I know this! Well I discovered something this time around. The first couple of times, I had taken the jam out of the fridge to let it come to room temperature (I have done this for years). Once the chill was off the jam, I mixed everything up and scruffed Ivan. I put the blob of jam in his mouth and then held him in a cuddle fashion. Let’s face it, we feel so guilty giving yucky medicine we have to cuddle them to say sorry!

Ivan fought me as I expected. He bubbled and frothed and we both wore the med but at least “some” got in him! On the morning of day three I took out the jam, but because of sleeping in and being in a hurry for an appointment; I immediately mixed the jam with the crushed med and gave it to Ivan keeping him in the scruff mode as I did it. Two things happened. The cold jam slid down his throat and didn’t “melt” on Ivan’s tongue. Also keeping Ivan in the scruff mode meant he couldn’t shake his head to spray his med flecked spit all over. The med went down in 2 seconds flat and Ivan didn’t froth at the mouth. Wow, that was easy! I gave Ivan a quick lick of Ferretone discontinued 2020 – now using Salmon Oil) as a reward and he did not shy away from me. He did not seem stressed this time. well, well, well.

I tried the same thing (cold jam) for the evening dose and again it went off like a charm.

I have since tried it with my IBS ferret JJ and he is not spitting up the Metronidazole. In fact in 5 seconds it’s all over with and he goes about playing. Man, I wish I had known this years ago. I had always warmed the jam up to make it easier! Now, I am no scientist so I can’t explain why the meds go down easier and quicker cold, but I tell you, I won’t do it any other way from now on!

11.01.14

by debferret

Found Ferret

There is a ferret in my back yard/under my deck/in my garage!

Several times each year the Manitoba Ferret Association will get a call from a concerned home owner concerning a lost ferret hiding in their garage, under their deck or up a tree! I am not here today to give you a detailed history lesson about the animals belonging to the Mustelid family, I simply want to give you a quick reference.

Please note our domesticated ferret does not climb trees! They have no sense of depth perception and would hurt themselves; Fishers, Martins, weasels do climb trees.

The wild cousins of the domesticated ferret are:

MINK

Has a small white patch under the chin, dark brown, or shiny black coat – lives along the river banks.

240px-Fisher_(animal)

FISHER

Very efficient climber, solid colour.

Pine martin

PINE MARTIN

Lighter in color and smaller than the fisher.

TREED MARTIN

weasel3

WEASEL

Weasel or Ermine as it is referred to in the Winter.

Turnip

DOMESTICATED FERRET

Last but not least our domesticated ferret which comes in all hues of brown, black, even in white. So it is understandable to non ferret owners how you can make a mistake.

**Photos of the wild animals are from Wikipedia. Ferrets pictures are from Zoë Rose and Deb K.

10.31.14

by debferret

2014 Ferret Halloween Party

Human Games:

Musical Pumpkins

Witchy Ring Toss

Suck it Up Foamies

Ferret Games:

Best Begging Pose

Paper sack escape

Shape Shifter Escape

Ferret Costume Parade

Sock it to ya

The Ferret Party was a Howl!

The party started with Musical Pumpkins. There were some pumpkins that slid across the floor “accidently” and in the end Kevin was left standing on the last pumpkin!

Our next game was Paper Sack Escape to get the ferrets going. Each of the ferrets got stuffed into paper bags and on command the bags were placed on the floor. Some ferrets investigated the inside of the bag, one furry decided to go to sleep. Chantal and Kevin tied desperately to stuff their 4 ferrets; Oscar, Borshie, Fargo and Charlie all at the same time. With a little help they got stuffed! There was a nose to nose finish but Bella blasted out of the paper sack to win.

We then played Longest Begging Pose. Rosalie, Meeka, Sarah, Borshie, Oscar and Charlie had no interest in begging for Bandit treats or Ferretone thank you very much! We only beg at home.

Deb’s Molly has no pride and begs daily. His time of 4.3 seconds was the best time with Chantal’s Fargo at 3.6 seconds and Sharon’s Sarah coming in third with 2.42 seconds.

We let the ferrets have a break and the humans played Witch Hat Ring Toss. Sounds easy, right? Well some of us couldn’t even get one ring on the hat! Kevin, Adrienne, Zoe, Melissa all scored one ring so their names went into the hat and Melissa won.

We woke up the ferrets to play Pick a Hole. The long narrow box had 3 round holes; each numbered. The ferret was inserted into the box and their owner had to choose which hole the ferret would stick his nose out of. The results were hilarious and some of us should learn from this and never gamble!

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Turnip and Radish (Zoe) Belle (Melissa & Dan) Zipper (Colleen) Meeka (Sharon) Oscar (Chantal & Kevin) were on the same page! Their names went into a hat and Zoe’s Radish won.

We decided to do the Costume Parade before all the ferrets decided they didn’t want to play anymore!

Sharon’s Sarah and Meeka came as road kill

Zoë’s Radish came as a bat, Turnip was a flower in a plant pot and Zoë looked lovely as a Cat-meow

Dan & Melissa’s old sweetie Belle wore Bunny Ears

Dan & Mellissa’s spunky Sara finally agreed to be the pumpkin but she was hoping for a frownie face

Bridget’s Bella and Jace joined forces with Bella as an M & M and Jace as a Candy Kiss

Colleen fought with her furries and sort of won when her boy Baby was finally turned into a baby and her little girl submitted to being Mrs. Skeleton

Deb’s Molly with his ongoing gender issues, rode in as Godiva on his pony

If I missed some ferrets it’s only because we were all laughing so hard, we forgot to take notes!

It was time for another human game – Suck It Up Foamies. We had a bucket of foam Halloween cut outs; skeletons, pumpkins, Zorro mask, witches and lots more. Some had sparkles on them (note to self remove the sparkly ones so we don’t kill someone next year) this game sounded so easy. Using a straw, suck up a foamy and move it to the bucket; moving as many as you can in 30 seconds. Most of us made 5foamies, Kevin and Melissa managed 8 foamies but our Danial using some real fancy toe dancing sucked up 9 foamies to win! Kevin won for most sparkles sucked down his wind pipe or so he hacked at us!

We ended our party with a nice quiet game. Put 4 homemade ferret socks on your ferret and keep them on for one second. You would think that pooped out ferrets would be too tired to keep yanking one paw then another pulling the sock off. Lots of laughter and some mild cursing and Kevin with one of their brood kept the socks on for one second! You all have one year to practice “socking” your ferret!

Andy and Adrienne had a huge pile of leaves for the furries to play in. Molly was the first to dive in!

There was a lot to eat with lots of contributions to the snack table. A special thanks to Andy and Adrienne’s son who saved Deb’s bacon when she forgot the pop. Rhys donated a 12 pack of Coke.

Overall, everyone had a great time and all the ferrets (and humans) went home totally played out!