From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2002-08-31 23:43:26 UTC
Subject: RE: Bob C: Ferret Caretaker Quiz
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com, chris.lloyd2@btinternet.com
Message-Id: <p05111704b997018ad647@[10.0.1.44]>
>
> > Has anyone dissected a ferret
> >hairball? Is it ferret fur or what I think more likely bedding, carpet
>>fibre or human hair. Chris.
>
>>The Wessex Ferret Club http://web.ukonline.co.uk/superzoe/index.htm
>>Chris Lloyd ICQ no. 44575318
We have had only two ferrets in 20 years have fur balls. One has a
flaccid and huge stomach which does not process thing properly and he
grooms everyone every day. ( He's got surgery coming again next week
for something that has formed next to his intestine. ) The other one
had a "fur" ball which was taken apart. There was a little actual
fur in there but on comparison it turned out that a LOT of the "fur"
was fiber material which matched with the fake fleece and fake fur in
some of our bedding. He was also a bed-snacker, someone who loved to
take food into bedding and eat there. The solution was to one by one
sew sheeting material over the fake sheep-fleece and fake fur. (I
still have about something like 1/5 of the beds to do, and have left
the hardest shapes for last.) I found some other real wins to doing
so. Not only did the stomach fiber balls stop, but the beds are
easier to clean -- needing only one wash instead of three to come
very clean, the washer and drier don't have a lot of loose fiber lint
to deal with, and the beds last longer. Except for the work
involved, covering the fake sheep-fleece and fake fur has been a
win-win-win-win situation: safer stomachs, better for the laundering
machines, easier to launder, and longer lasting. I'll bet that Bob
and some others remember when we went through that fiberball
investigation process. Our carpet doesn't have a shedding problem,
but I bet that you are right that those can play a part at times,
too. So far none of the polar fleece fabric here has shown a
tendency to shed, but I'd watch any inexpensive copies of that just
in case and check them.