From:
Mohr
Date: 2004-01-05 21:22:34 UTC
Subject: RE: [ferrethealth] aggressive female
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-Id: <6.0.1.1.0.20040105145936.01bd4e98@pop.central.cox.net>
At 11:46 AM 1/5/2004, you wrote:
>I have been through this a million times. As long as the ferrets are not
>full (breeders) they will eventually all get along, even though the
>screaming, bloody necks and stalking is VERY hard to tolerate.
I've got a question here, because we have that situation in our house. The
difference is that the aggressive one is male, Carter, about 3-4lbs
depending upon the season of the year. (He IS fixed, BTW.) When we tried
to introduce him to the two others we've gotten since he became part of our
family, he immediately went for the KILL. Straight for the neck, hung on
like a snapping turtle, wouldn't let go until I blocked his nostrils and
pried him away. We thought it would ease up, but he just repeats the same
pattern over and over. Even though both the others are fully grown and
rather large, they're female, and I'm afraid he could actually kill one of
them. We tried many tactics -- rearranging cages, bedding, and poop,
bitter apple, lightly misting them all with perfume, etc., etc.,
etc. Nothing works.
So we have two separate cages. My main worry is that when his cagemate,
the one remaining fuzzball of our business from when he was accepted (with
nary a peep, which was very weird), is almost 8, tiny, frail and in poor
health. He is a big strapping boy who wants to play. We play with him, of
course, but it doesn't seem to be enough. He wants to play with Gabrielle
(cagemate) like he used to, but she is a crochety old lady now and won't
have any of it.
Sorry this is so long. I just cannot figure out why he behaves this way,
so any insight would be helpful. He made up the fifth fert in our business
at the time we got him, and even though we've since lost 3 of the other 4
(lymphoma, "old age," and insulinoma), he will not tolerate anyone else!
-Natasha