From:
<natashamohr@cox.net>
Date: 2004-03-18 20:28:26 UTC
Subject: behavior!
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-Id: <20040318202826.ZOAY5813.lakemtao04.cox.net@smtp.east.cox.net>
My 5 1/2 year old boy has begun chewing on and ingesting large pieces of cloth. He has had several poops that were almost nothing but cloth. He is otherwise in fine health (no problems at all and absolutely no indication of adrenal or anything else -- he's full of energy!), and he's apparently passed all the cloth, but we have had to remove all bedding from his cage so he won't eat it.
I know the problem is that he is bored. However, in his case it is not simple to fix. He is really my SO's ferret more than mine -- they get along better -- so my SO plays with him every evening.
His story is that when he was a kit, we had four others. They accepted him immediately, without so much as a squeak. Literally in ten minutes from the time he waddled into the cage, he was one of them. They were a happy fivesome -- three girls and two boys, of which he was one.
Well, everyone else was older than he was, and they began to pass on. First the other boy, then the older girl, then another girl. Now he is left alone in the cage with the one remaining girl, who is elderly and cranky and doesn't want to play anymore. She is also what I would call "end-stage" adrenal and she is COLD, but as long as she stays with him she can have no bedding. So he is alone and she is cold.
Aha, get another ferret, you say. Been there, done that. Twice. He will have NONE of it. I have been around many ferrets and I know the difference between dominance behavior and attack, kill, go for the jugular behavior. He exhibits the latter. He is large with very strong jaws and I have always been afraid that he would actually kill another ferret before they had the chance to work it out -- I also have my doubts that they ever would work it out. We tried supervised interaction for a long period of time, and his behavior never changed at all.
What are we to do? We give him as much human contact as we can, but of course we both work, so he is left essentially alone for long periods of time. He has an entire room in which to run and play, but he is still alone and eats the fabric up there too. So he eats fabric and is bored and unhappy but he won't accept anyone else.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to make him happier, please let me know!
-Natasha