From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2004-01-05 23:45:22 UTC
Subject: RE: aggressive female
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <6140853.1073346322832.JavaMail.root@indium.smartgroups.com>
Usually, we have found that aggression goes away.
In some cases we have had to use tricks:
Providing extra safe scent to enhance the alpha if the alpha felt insecure.=
(Stink is status.), or providing extra scent to the attacked one if the a=
lpha was very secure but just seemed ot have found an easy bullying opportu=
nity. (It is IMPORTANT that these two things are distinguished between car=
efully so observations have to be made over time beforehand.) =
Sometimes bathing them together works.
Sometimes alternating their bedding so that they get used ot each others' s=
cents helps.
Sometimes absolutely exhausting them then placing the two together when the=
y are so asleep that they don't wake when you move them works. (Grab a boo=
k and settle yourself in in the same room and do it several times over if n=
eeded.)
Now and then there just no way anything will work. In 21 years with ferret=
s we've had two situations like that. The first involved a female whose ey=
e had been bitten through by a mounting male before she joined us. Haleaka=
la was wonderful with kits but with adult ferrets she was a real hazard an=
d very afraid with the males. When she got really old and ill we set up an=
aquarium for her to watch and she loved it. The second was Ruffle. Ruffi=
e had multiple serious deformities and very badly diminished intellectual c=
apacity as well as pain which was a job for us to tackle but ways were foun=
d including with massage helping with her poor little limbs and back and me=
ds for her asthma. She was so mentally impaired that she didn't even under=
stand many ferret communications -- verbal or body language despite having =
her senses, and it took her 3 years to realize that words actually have mea=
nings (but then she learned her half dozen or so well will repeated teachin=
g). One of our others had a culling response to Ruffle and would regularly=
try to kill her if she got any chance -- truly try not just fighting. The=
re were two adults who took her under their "wings" but when they passed aw=
ay she was simply too afraid to meet anyone else. We let her have her own =
cage and her own times out. For those two we just accepted that there was =
no way they would get along with anyone else and shaped life around that.
=
=