Hi, Healthy-Ferret People!

[candiceboggs]

Hi, there. My name is Candice and I love fuzzies. (Okay, sounds a bit AA, but oh, well.)

I don't have any ferrets of my own yet, but I did foster a pair for two months for a friend. I've read Ferrets for Dummies, Animal Planet Ferrets, Barron's Ferrets, How to Train Your Pet Ferret (also by Barron's) as well as a couple of other ferret care books whose names I can't remember.

My husband and I raw feed our dog and two cats completely and we all love it! We plan on getting a ferret sometime next year so for now I am "nesting". I have already ordered a new FN 142 and I also have some beautiful homemade bedding I ordered to create an amazing cage theme TBA. I have some questions for all of you guys which would probably be best left somewhere other than in an introduction thread. ;D So anyways I hope to learn a lot from you all and I'm very excited!

[bluemoose]

Welcome to the forum! Browse around, especially in the nutrition section, as there is a wealth of good information to read. Sounds like you're pretty prepared for ferret ownership (as prepared as you can be with these little monsters ) but there's always more to learn Feel free to ask any questions. Everyone is friendly and helpful and no question is considered silly.

[mjohn143]

Wow, you are preparing very well and that's great! Welcome, and ask anything... someone will know the answer! There are some very knowledgeable pple here

[sherrylynne]

Hi, and welcome So glad to see you doing your research first! Since you still want a ferret after all that, you've come to the right place
Please, feel free to browse, ask questions, etc. We'll look forward to seeing you on the board, and to pics of the fuzz when you get them

[sunnyberra]

congrats on the impending arrival of your baby. Hope you enjoy the forum!

[Heather]

Hey Candice good to see you got over here. Please feel free to prowl, read and ask questions. There are no stupid questions, the only stupid questions are the ones that never got asked but should have been. Everyone's friendly and more than willing to give you a hand. Considering our earlier conversation, take a prowl through our nutritional section. There's tons of information there. You can apply for a mentor but barring that take a look through the mentoring threads. There's a really great amount of information there, you can't post to those threads but you can get ideas from the difficulties that were encountered by the people working those threads.
I wish you luck with your research and I hope that you will decide to take in a fuzz or two (they're easier to handle when there are more than one....you can actually check out a thread that was started by one of our members who had a real whip of a fuzzbutt for her first fuzzie)
Good luck
ciao

[rarnold18]

Hi and Welcome to the forum!!! The nutrition section is awesome and full of tons of info!

[candiceboggs]

Hi, all! Thank you for the very warm welcome. I can tell I'm going to like it here. And I recognize Heather from a raw list, heh, so I can put a face to a name!

Easier to handle in pairs? My understanding was they are more like cats, neither pack nor colonial pet animals and can do well alone, so long as they haven't been raised with another fuzzy. When we fostered two was a little overwhelming at first! XD

[bluemoose]

They aren't pack animals and don't need another ferret to be happy but they do need mental and physical stimulation. You can provide all of this but be prepared to dedicate all your free time and more to that. Read through this for an idea:
holisticferret.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=talking&thread=5903&page=1

A second ferret actually makes your life easier and enriches the lives of the ferrets. Multiple ferrets will play together, eat together, sleep together- basically they can provide each other constant company which you cannot. Plus ferrets play and communicate with each other in a way that we cannot. There are certainly things you can offer a ferret in the way of play and enrichment that are unique to you though. Having two ferrets doesn't mean they won't still bond to you. I feel you can have the best of both worlds by having at least two ferrets and still giving them lots of play time yourself.

[candiceboggs]

Dec 15, 2010 0:16:50 GMT -5 @bluemoose said:

Read through this for an idea:
holisticferret.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=talking&thread=5903&page=1

A second ferret actually makes your life easier and enriches the lives of the ferrets. Having two ferrets doesn't mean they won't still bond to you. I feel you can have the best of both worlds by having at least two ferrets and still giving them lots of play time yourself.

Hey, thanks for the link! I'll check it out right away. Honestly I do feel since I stay at home all the time that I would be able to give one fuzzy enough interaction. We already have two cats, one dog, (with plans for another next year) one mouse, and two gerbils. Full house! I haven't decided where my fuzzy is coming from yet as my options here are sadly limited to one choice or another, so that will affect how easy a raw transition is - and depending on how that goes we may stick with one, or allow ferret-math to take hold. If that happened we'd be in the perfect situation to adopt a bonded pair, then have the perfect number - 3. But more than likely we will stick with one.