TACCATO'S MISSING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tsslilsis]

That is great that you found her!

I would suggest watching where she wants to go, and seeing what she wants to get into while you have them on leash, then you can ferret proof what they show you. Hopefully at some point they will be allowed out again.. Ferrets really need that freedom or they won't have good muscle tone and they will be very hyper and possibly aggressive. My ferrets get 9-13 hours out of the cage every day and if they don't then they start going crazy. They only have free roam in the bedroom because of the dogs and also because that is the only room I know for sure is safe enough. They don't need a whole house to roam in order to be happy.

-~Ketlin

[Heather]

Can you get hold of a book called "Ferrets for Dummies" by Kim Schilling and I'm not telling you your a dummy ...far from it. It's just the most awesome book all about ferret stuff. In the book, Chapter 7...the whole chapter is on ferret proofing your house. It is "the" Ferret owner's bible. My book is out of date and I understand they've upgraded some of the information but even if you get an old one, it will help you out setting up your room so your furbabies can roam around and play again without leashes. It talks about places to check, things you can do....ferret proofing is a huge indeavour and requires a lot more space than I have here to write to you These little bums can get into such tight places (as you found out) they have no fear, so falling is also a factor. They can scale cages, get under and in more things than I care to think about. I found my Mad Max trying to catch my oscars one day (very large fish). He had climbed in behind my tv, used the stand to get to the window...climbed along the window, up a bookshelf, onto the tank cupboard and then used the curtains to get on top of the tank. He then pulled out the heater (used the cord I think) and was in the process of climbing into the tank. Devious, yes, hugely inventive they're the best. If Max had succeeded he probably would have drowned Did he care no, because he then proceeded to show me how he did it when I put him down. I then had to reshuffle my whole living room...moving a 65 gal fish tank was out of the question He has since graduated to breaking into my husbands closet, using his suits to get to the top shelf and dumping all his clean tshirts down to the rest of the hoard waiting for the fun to begin in the bottom of the closet. Not all ferrets are like Mad Max (his actual name is Maximum Hyjinx )
If you have some very specific questions we will try to answer them, but because we can't see your room set up we really can't answer the general question of how to proof your room....
I suppose you could try photos
ciao

[suds]

what about getting a playpen for them ?even if you dont want to keep them in the pen all the time you can use the panels to block off areas you dont want them to go into www.ferret.com has some good prices for the pen if you want to look into them , (just a thought )

[tsslilsis]

We use baby gates. I've found they are must haves. You can find them pretty cheap at second hand shops.

-~Ketlin

[Heather]

That may well be Taccato...she was under a lot of stress. Keep an eye on your furbabies...someone is really under the weather and kibble fed ferrets go down fast. Dehydration is your biggest enemy. How is everyone behaving? Eating? Lethargic? If you can figure out which one, perhaps some pedialyte (unflavoured) or offer it to both...it won't cause any problems if they don't need it but it will help which ever one is vomiting. Note; you can't keep the stuff once it's been opened. You have to use it within 24 hrs (I think, I make my own so I don't know for sure on that other than you can't keep it for very long)
ciao

[suds]

you need to find out which one threw up ASAP!! its never good if a ferret threw up once let alone 4 times keep a very close eye on them all and there poops if you see any stringy or strange poops could be a sign of blockage and needs to see a vet now !! please read this post about blockages
holisticferret.proboards80.com/index.cgi?board=medicine&action=display&thread=990
they can get deydrated and very sick in a very very short time , you realy need check them all out carfuly and look for signs of not eating , not pooping ,stringy or very little poop