Hello from Gin and Sookie

[bluecoyote]

Just wanted to jump in and say hi
i just joined a moment ago. i was referred here by a very nice person from youtube - we were talking about a whole prey diet when this forum was mentioned. so.... HELLO!

Yes my ferret is named Sookie, yes... after the one from the book/tv series True Blood seemed like a suitable ferrety type name. i was reading the series when i brought her home - also found out that author owns a ferret too so i figured why not?

She's only been with us since August and she is my first ferret(my brother had one years ago but that didnt end well i'm afraid... You see he also had a sugar glider at the time and both the fert and glider were escape artists. well... they chose to escape at the same time one evening when no one was home. and since my brother is a policeman he used his skills to solve the crime....... needless to say Riki the ferret had a nice expensive snack before he got shipped off to a new home... i was actually mad at my brother for not letting me have him

Well, ten years later i found my little girl looking for a new home(her people didnt check the pet clause on their apartment before they got her!)
I did a little research before i ever decided i was getting a ferret. i have friends in england that raise and train them for ferreting and some of their knowledge on care and diet has rubbed off. so when i saw that she needed a home i couldnt resist. one of those fateful moments i guess.
Before i got her i always thought they were omnivorous like a raccoons. and for a while i thought my ferret friends in the UK only fed them raw because it made the most sense to give them a share of the kill.. i mean why buy kibble? you know?
But after i got her i did some more research(mostly because that ferret food is CRAZY expensive!! $20 for four pounds of food?!) i was surprised at the yahoo answers where people would ask about raw diets for ferrets and people would go nuts saying pretty much the same thing about a canine raw diet... "They are EVOLVED!! they dont eat MEAT! they dont hunt! are you crazy?!"
but then i read ferts in the USA dont have very long lifespans compared to the ones in the UK... they die of things like tumors or diabetes. didnt take a rocket scientist to figure out its the kibble... just like in dog chow?
and all of that lead me in a great big hunt for the truth... and it IS out there, but its buried! incidentally my dogs are also fed a raw diet...
So that is what brought me here. she's finicky, and i'd like to some day soon get her on a totally raw/natural diet and never have to spend that much money on smelly food ever again. i swear it smells exactly like fish food you'd find at a catfish farm. and from what i've learned feeding dogs raw ... i'm interested to find out if the natural diet will cut back on the stinky poop.
At the moment i'm not sure whats the best route to travel.... lately i've been weighing the pros and cons of feeder mice.. i live in the country. the location is central.. everything is about an hour away from us. not sure if i should buy feeder mice to start with since i KNOW she'll eat that, or if i should breed my own feeder mice. i've owned pet mice, hamsters and rats when i was in high school, but i never bred them.
i'm also not sure if she would even eat a prekilled rodent. She managed to kill a house mouse a few weeks ago - it scampered into my kids bedroom one evening when they were asleep...and she followed after it.. it seemed like half the fun for her was in the hunt and the bonus was in the eating(it was clearly a surprise to her! like a lightbulb went off over her head like "Hey! instincts!") and surprisingly,to me anyway, she enjoyed eating it. the surprise being that i have never seen her eat anything BUT kibble. the lady who gave her to me said she liked boiled eggs but Sookie disagrees. i cooked one for her once and she wouldnt go near it..

I'm not squeamish about the idea of live food.... i grew up half wild myself and am not a stranger to the "eat or be eaten" facts of life...
one of my friends asked me "why dont you just trap some mice from the barn?" and my answer is.. we have RATS in the barn.. big ones. and they may or may not have parasites... and they may or may not do more damage to my ferret than she could to them. seriously, these are woodrats and are as big as the rats you get from pet stores.. only if petshop rats are comparable to golden retrievers, the woodrat is a wolf... No way am i willing to risk that.
So here i am still weighing pros and cons. this weekend i'm thinking about buying a couple of feeder mice..
and there again i worry about the potential for parasites.
when i got my pet rats from a pet store ten years ago(they were supposed to be snake food) they all came with worms that the vet had to treat.. Sookie is worm free and i'd kinda like to keep it that way. i figure if i breed my own mice i can ensure that her food will continue to be relatively worm free.

Before that however, tomorrow i'll be doing a thorough exploration of the forum and threads about the best way to switch her diet. i'm probably saying way too much for this section anyway, and i'm sorry



Now, as for her personality...
She doesnt seem to have had a lot of handling. the cage she came with has LOTS of teeth marks all over it. she's tame, but not very playful. she's pounced on my hand a total of two times before deciding i was boring and wandered off to explore.. she has a couple of toys but ignores them, she'd rather explore, but our dog's squeaker toys get her attention from across the room. but she doesnt play with them. once she finds they dont do anything she hops away again to....explore...
she doesnt steal things either, the most she's attempted was a shoe but it was bigger than her! my brother's ferret was a laugh riot. he would disappear into a room and moments later return carrying some kind of contraband(one time it was a bag of new penny rolls that he could barely pick up, but he managed to get them stuffed up under the sofa)
Sookie does love to have her back scratched and will go for walks on her harness... however she's not very good at using her litter pan. i wont let her come out to play until she does her business and right now its hit or miss with the pan.... so we're still working on that.
i know a LOT about dog training.... but ferret training/personalities is uncharted territory for me.... which is another reason i joined. i see people that have several ferrets loose in their house 24/7... and while i dont think i want several i DO want her to be loose all the time but do NOT want to be picking up poop out of a corner ever 15 minutes. when my brother heard i got a ferret he didnt have anything nice to say about that= he calls them $#*+ machines...
with her, when i see her backing into a corner i drop what ever i'm doing and take her to her cage and put her in it until she's finished, then she comes out again. once in a while she'll go to her cage by herself to poop, usually when she's thirsty.. but the majority of the time i'm watching and waiting. i dont know if i'm expecting too much out of her to go back to the cage every time or not or if i might as well just get a couple of extra litter pans to keep around the house :/

Anyway, This is the little girl herself! the vet said she's about 11 months to a year old...

i dont have a lot of pictures of her yet.. she's kinda hard to photograph ... got lots of crisp clear pics of her body but her head is always blurry like its spinning lol



...So about me... my name is Gin, I am a stay at home mom and I live on a little 3 acre farm with the usual farm type animals as well as the occasional wildlife rescue or stray pet - i am usually the person people go to when they cant help an animal or dont have the courage to dump their pet at a shelter i guess i have a big neon sign floating over my head that reads SUCKER? it also doesnt help that while these people are usually ignorant... i simply cant refuse to help the animal. thank God i have a great vet who doesnt charge me full price when i bring in these strays. he's just awesome as far as vets go lol

aside from that, i also have a wonderful loving husband who puts up with all my critters and chaos
he's a city boy, born in NH, lived six years in miami, travelled all over the world as an Air Force kid, and owned one dog and one cat for 17 years... he thinks he's married to ellie mae clampett lol
i'd like to think i'm a little more refined than that! but... i guess he's right.....?
I like a simple life, i love my family, and my animals are part of my family, and they deserve to be taken care of LIKE family.

So thats me! i know i've probably overwhelmed you guys with this long winded introduction and really dont expect it to be read ... if you do then thanks!

[horse656]

hi, welcome
browse the forums. its a great way to get ideas for things

i don't bother trying to litter train out of the cage, it's not exactly useless, but i just don't. they're great in their cage, so if i see one go to the bathroom i put them out after that.

if you are bothered by the poop try getting some litter pans, and put them around the corners of the room, and when you see her back up into a corner put her in the litter box and keep her there until she goes.

you can raise your own mice. i did for a few months, but i stopped cause it didn't end to well. mice from the stores are usually aren't in the greatest conditions. i suggest, if you can, buy mice from different pet stores, that way they probably won't be related. breeding is easy. I've never done it before, but if you just put in a male and a female mouse, you'll get babies in about 3 weeks. i didn't do it right, because i had never had mice, so i put in the two females in together and the two males in together. haha, and i was wondering why i didn't have babies

she's a cutie

[sherrylynne]

Hi, and welcome! As for a switch to a raw diet, there's no reason you can't have her on total whole prey, other than the cost. It is expensive. Check out the nutrtion section. There's a sub-forum on breeder animals you may find very useful. And you are right about the rats being to big for her to handle. If they can't make a clean kill, don't do it. And she would be injured, no doubt about that. For a combo of raw/whole prey, you can get her to eat meat. It just sometimes takes some work. Again, the nutrition section has some really good ideas. You can also sign up for a mentor here:
holisticferret.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=newbie&action=display&thread=3454
The whole pooping thing. Yeah, I can sympathize Best to get her 100% in the cage to start. You'll also need several litter boxes outside the cage. Find the spot(s) she seems to prefer, and put a box or newspaper down there. They are very much like a toddler in some ways. It's play,play,play,play....GOTTOGONOW!!!! So, they run to the closest corner However, they are seldom 100% out of cage. Mine range from about 40% accuracy to around 90%, depending on the ferret, and what they are doing at the time

I look forward to seeing you around here, and don't forget to show us some more pics

[bluecoyote]

hi again!
so far she seems to have two favourite spots lol where i keep my vacuum cleaner and.... the shower in the master bathroom lol
i do have to point out that she isnt nearly as bad as my brother seems to act lol last time i saw him his exact words were "I dont know why on earth you want one of those things! dont you remember mine? always crapping all over the place and he ate my $300 sugar glider!"

i didnt mention to him that the plan was to feed her mice :/ as tough as he is, i'm not sure he'd see the logic in feeder her cute little mice..

i suggest, if you can, buy mice from different pet stores, that way they probably won't be related. breeding is easy. I've never done it before, but if you just put in a male and a female mouse, you'll get babies in about 3 weeks. i didn't do it right, because i had never had mice, so i put in the two females in together and the two males in together. haha, and i was wondering why i didn't have babies

LOL!! i can understand the frustration i did a little bit of reading on feeder mice breeding and they suggested the same about going to different pet shops. i honestly didnt consider the inbreeding but its a good point!
to be honest my biggest concern is one of my kids accidentally letting the mice escape or not being able to breed enough to keep up with the demand. but i'm willing to give it a try! i know feeding raw can get expensive but where i live right now its worse if i'm buying the kibble at $20 a bag. and the nearest pet store being an hour away plus gas prices not being reasonable. i came to the conclusion it would be easier, not to mention healthier, if i could do it myself. BUT if i could get her to eat other meat besides the rodents, that would be good too. we live three miles outside a little country town that a butcher, plus its a sporting community. thats how i get meat for the dogs. but sadly Sookie wont touch the meat. i tried the smelly oily stuff in the tube and she'll just lick it off the meat. and ignore the rest :/
my friends in england warned me that a ferret will try to stash meat but she's not doing that.

one last thing, have any of you heard of the website www.hare-today.com/? i was thinking eventually ordering from them but not until i get to talk to people who have done business with them.

thanks!

[horse656]

I've never actually ordered from there. they do have lots of variety.
there is also www.rodentpro.com/ they have lots of prey as well. I've heard shipping from those places is really expensive. so get a loaded cart, and then ship it. it's too bad that they don't ship to canada.

mice usually have around 10 babies(some more some less). so if you have multiple females you should be able to keep up, unless you're only feeding her mice/other prey.

[Heather]

Hi and welcome... seems I'm a little late this morning
Please check out our nutritional section, lots of really good information there. Doing whole prey can get expensive. I feed commercial ground, my own ground and frankenprey. My guys also get my mice (homegrown ) and rats raised by a friend who raises them for her snakes (something worth looking into, check out the snake supplier in your area) and rabbit (with fur and stuff) from the local raw feeders coop. The hardest part about raw feeding is setting up your suppliers. Once you have that down the rest is easy . Having a large freezer (as you know with feeding your dog) makes it cheaper, by allowing you to take advantage of sales and bulk buys.
Hmmm....litter training. They can learn, if they want to . I find little girls are harder to train than the boys (they don't necessarily always use corners....got to love the bombs in the middle of the hallway ). The thing to remember too, is ferrets are territorial, once they get comfortable with their area, then they get better at hitting the litter box (they don't have to prove they own the place .
I can understand your brother being perturbed, but you know....prey and hunter don't necessarily cohabitate and ferrets as you found out are deep down hunters. It takes very little to get them to hunt. Out of the 30 or so that have come through my hospice, I've got 2 that just don't get it (can't seem to figure out how to hunt for anything....brain damaged )
Good luck, I hope that I will be seeing you around and as no one seems to have mentioned it....we love photos
ciao

[katt]

I don't have time to read all of that now bc I am at work but I will! I am the Queen of long posts - looks like I have some competition now!

Was the person on YouTube me by a chance? lol Mu user name is the same only with a 4 I think. I referred someone here...

[katt]

Ok, still at work but I read it! lol You can feed feeders, and I do recommend rodentpro.com. Breeding is easy, I just started it and I already have several babies who are in the process of getting nice and fat. lol A pair of them are going to a nice home to be pets too. I just can't help but name some of them...

If you are going to be feeding raw, you do need a good variety. I recommend doing a supplemental franken prey diet with a variety of meats, organs, and raw bones in addition to the whole prey, as well as other types of whole prey (quail, rabbit, chicks, rats, mice) to keep a good variety. Read around in the Feeding and Nutrition section to learn more about switching them. It takes a lot of time, effort and patience because they imprint on their food. I would NOT let her eat anything wild as - like you mentioned - there is a huge risk of parasites and disease. And yu are correct about feeding live rats as well. Rats are large and they are dangerous when cornered t hey will self defend and a good chomp from a rat can be bad news. Mice are much smaller, have smaller teeth, and are more easily overtaken with far less risk to the ferret. Rodent bites can become easily infected, but a quick, small nip from a mouse usually just serves as a lesson and makes for a better hunter.

Also, your fuzz does not know how to play and be a ferret. This is pretty common for ferts who are a) alone and b)constantly caged - which it sounds like she was. There are several threads in the Enrichment area about teaching her to play and be a ferret. I REALLY recommend getting a second ferret too. Having an only ferret is HARD - trust me, I have the world's most only ferret. lmao With an only fert, YOU are responsible for 100% of everything. Entertainment, play-mate, exercise, enrichment, etc. Ferrets can be kept on their own, but it is a lot more work! Once I figure out my ferret's health issues, and my bank account recuperates, I plan on getting Koda a girl friend.

Welcome to the forums and please browse around and ask questions as they come up!

Also, the more pictures the better! Suki is adorable!

[bluecoyote]

lol Yep i believe that was you in youtube (by the way, your icon makes me laugh every time i see it because Dar looks like my husband hehe)

I am well stocked in chicks,chickens, ducks and ducklings....or i will be again soon..... raccoons wiped out my flock last month... i lost four pullets, and three ducklings before i could set traps to remove the critters. i have six pullets left and four ducks..... soooooo not cool

But i was actually wondering if anyone here fed chicks to their ferrets, live or frozen... being chicks... they tend to have a high mortality rate. like mice, you're bound to lose a couple of them.

And i agree, she hasnt got a clue what she is, the poor thing lol she was doing a war dance with a tshirt today though, so thats some progress!
i wouldnt mind having another one but convincing my husband is the trick. i think once i get her diet changed, and she's less poopy/smelly he wont be so hard to sway.....
its rrrrrrrrrrreeeeaaaaallly difficult though. someone in Craigslist was "selling" a ferret a few weeks ago.. cage, accessories, food, all for $50.... i'm not sure yet if its a good or bad thing that the ad didnt stay posted long because i was INCREDIBLY tempted!!
But i dont think it will be difficult to add a second.. its sad but i see those ads all the time. This is a college town after all.... often times you can guess when the animal flood will begin based on semesters and summer vacations some people just dont think before they bring in a pet. and ferrets, expensive as they are, are very popular with the college kids around here. If i wasnt home all day then i couldnt have justified a pet like this.. i learned back when i had pet rats its difficult to stop at one, especially when they are social critters.

lol at long posting, i'm bad at that i know! the scary thing is.... that was the SHORT version!

[katt]

Sept 19, 2010 0:34:28 GMT -5 @bluecoyote said:

lol Yep i believe that was you in youtube (by the way, your icon makes me laugh every time i see it because Dar looks like my husband hehe)

Yes! One success for the books! I try to send as many people here as possible because it really is the best ferret forum ever.

Yes, many people feed chicks, however they are very low in calcium so it is best not to feed them too often. I think some people might feed them live, but I am not sure...

And don't be afraid to make long posts haha I think I have helped get people around here used to them! And I am glad you like my avatar - and recognize it! loove BeastMaster! lol It is such a long movie and I love it, but no one will watch it again with me! It is soo ridiculous - I love imitating parts of the movie... "I will call you *Rrruhh*" And his conversations with the hawk... *shakes head* "Screeeeechaaawwwww" That would have been a pun part to play as an actor.

As for your husband...give him time. Ferrets are hard to resist and you will find that, on a raw diet, Sookie will smell a LOT better. Her poop will smell depending on what you feed. Whole prey poops smell more than franken-prey-meat poops, but even that smells better than kibble poops. What goes in, comes out! Her coat will be TONS softer and very shiny and luxurious - you will probably notice it most after she has shed after being on raw for a bit. She will have more energy, and her energy will be more sustainable. Also, I suggest getting a lock crock bowl for her water instead of a bottle. They can drink better from bowls and dehydration makes them smell worse since the "Stink" comes from the oil produced in the sebaceous glands in their skin. The drier their skin, the more oils they will produce, and the more they will smell - same thing applies to baths as baths dry out their skin.

[bluecoyote]

good info about the water bottle. i was wondering about that too. my rats and mice had bottles, but my rabbits used bowls.. seems it depends on the animal and what type of dish works best. i've only recently put the dog's water bowl in the livingroom by the front door. normally its in our bathroom to keep my kids from playing in it, but its been so hot lately i like the water to be the first thing the dog has access to when she comes inside after playing with the kids.
but i noticed Sookie all but climbing into it lol (((i also have to make sure the guest bathroom is locked so she doesnt accidentally climb into the toilet!!)))

lol i got fussed at, indirectly, in other forums. they would have these threads like "what annoys you most in a forum" and a lot of people said "long posts! i skim them or ignore them"
and i was thinking, jeeez what a waste of my time and knowledge, ya punks!
some things you CANT say in twenty words or less!

by the way, speaking of icons..... how do i get mine?? i've looked in the obvious place... "Profile" but i dont see anything that lets me upload a picture or sig..
and by the way i love Beast Master too lol i watched it a few times when i was a kid and i can remember watching a "How they made the movie" for the sequel. my brother and i laughed at the big tough tiger running and jumping up on something ..... to get a little bit of food lol
sadly i netflix doesnt have the dvd yet.. so i'll have to buy them some day

[horse656]

haha, i had troubles with the icons as well.
go to your profile, and it'll say modify profile in bold letters. above your name, email etc.

[bluecoyote]

ah ha! i found it! i am soooo set in my ways that i dont see links unless they are underlined! i guess it would help if i would actually READ things lol
((that comes from being in a constant rush, never know when i have to jump up and run so i work fast at the computer))
thank you for pointing that out to me lol seems obvious now but i didnt even come close to seeing it! ;D

[katt]

lol Yeah my best friend inherited a million and one (I counted ) random dvds from her grandpa. Beastmater was in the collection, so I took it home and we all watched it. Now she has left again for school and every time she is back in town I forget to give it back to her. I don't think anyone cares or notices though. lmao

I like reading long posts, but they are a bit detrimental to my study habits... I'm like hmmm I could study cellular respiration and the ecology of this-and-that, or I could read about ferrets! Take a guess at which I usually pick...

Some ferrets (not mine! lol) LOVE playing in water. You can fill up the tub, or a big (clean) litter box, or a tupperware tub with water and toss in a few toys for her to play in. Ferrets like snorkeling. Even Koda who thinks if the water touches his toes or is falling out of the faucet that he is getting a dreaded bath will snorkel for toys or sticks in shallow water. (As long as he has a nice, safe, dry place to stand that is). I bet Sookie would love it!

[bluecoyote]

i just found out from my mom that she has a copy of the book somewhere in book collection -i must steal it!

when i give her a bath she kinda enjoys it and then kinda doesnt. i kept the water shallow for her so she wouldnt feel like she would drown, and just let it fill up slowly. let her get her toes wet first. but when i first bathed her, one minute she would try to jump out and then the next she was doing her best to try to swim and just going all around the tub from the shallow end to the deeper end lol

i have to say she enjoys a bath more than my dogs!
she also likes a dirt bath lol or a kitty litter bath (thank God it was a fresh pan of cat litter! yuck!)