A bit of fun

[Lazy-Ferret]

As some of you know, we have pet ferrets, who are all rescues. During the year, we help our local ferret rescue with their fund raising events. One task that seems to have fallen on us over the years is when they put on a ferret show, as a way of breaking the boredom of the people just sitting there waiting for their ferrets numbers to be called, we put on some fun classes to keep them entertained.

These involve getting people talking to each other, by having to go round the hall and meet the other ferrets, and then vote for things like "the ferret with the fluffiest coat", "the ferret most people would like to take home", and other things like that... We also have a race with play offs, which because of space limitations needed to be a bit more inventive than the more normal running down pipes associated with ferrets... This year we went for getting tall Christmas bags, the ones that open out and actually stand up on their own, putting a ferret in them, and then seeing whose ferret was the first to get the bag to fall over and get out.



It's simple but it gets the competitive spirit going.



One of the other things is to get people to decorate their cages, and this year we went for turning the cage into a Reindeer...







The nose glows red, and all the outline is edged with silver glowing EL wire.

I also made Ferret Hammock Beds to go along with the bags of ferret food as prizes for each class. These are the softest fluffy fleece on the inside, and cotton on the outside, here's a sample.









Our classes raised over £120 for the rescue, so we were very pleased.

As part of our 4x4 Response group, over the month of December we are helping another charity by using our 4x4's to pull Santa's Sleigh. Suz and I are doing a couple of nights, so the Reindeer head will be going on the front of my car, along with the the usual decorations I put on her.

[Monaro Pete]

This one thinks this is fun too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9xHEj3Gk4Q

[perelaar]

I'm pretty sure one of my labradors would get into a fluffy hammock if it were large enough for him to get inside...

[emjaybee]

Just one comment...

...PICS !!! (of ferrets!)

[Lazy-Ferret]

My wife keeps asking me to make a full size one for her...

Originally Posted by Monaro Pete

This one thinks this is fun too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9xHEj3Gk4Q

That one clip causes more hassle for ferrets than anything... it's amazing that one famous person being bitten by a ferret on TV, and no one forgets it, but all the kids bitten by hamsters, gerbils, rats etc, over the years, and they will still buy them for their own kids when they grow up and have them.

Pictures of Ferrets are no problem, I have thousands, but I must admit we did not get many at the show, as I was so busy doing all the other stuff.

This is our little old lady, Megan, she came to us, with 6 3day old kits, and the drug addicted owner freely admitted she had not been fed for 4 days.... She is now about 7 or 8 years old, maybe older as he was not exactly very good with his ages.



Bourneville, and Flyte.

Bourneville is a EU Polecat, who was bred in captivity to be returned to the wild, but the program was cancelled, so they were all supposed to be put to sleep. We officially have him on long term loan, but unofficially, he is ours.
Flyte is one of Megans Kits, and a real daddies girl. She winds Suz up all the time.



This is Topic helping me defrost the freezer...



Reject, another one of Megan's Kits, is guarding the custard tarts in the trolley.



Snicker, he is stealing a "Refresher" sweet from his mum....



Minstrel, helping me make hammocks...



and Poppet, she is a very "Special" ferret, and actually came second in her class at the show.

[emjaybee]

Thank you !!!!

I love your ferrets, I often pop in on your website and have a look-see.

[Blocky10]

Great photos. My kids now asked if they could put one on their Christmas list! Ha ha ha.
Great on the fund raising

[Monaro Pete]

Being of proper country bumpkin blood. My Dad kept Pole Cats & Ferrets when I was a youngster.
We used to go rabbiting with them. I would find it great fun to spread the nets over the holes & watch the rabbits bolt.
We would always get a ferret that wouldn't come out for ages. There were times when we would just pack up & leave the ferret as it would be getting dark. I often wondered what would happen to the ferret!! Thinking about it now, I expect it would just go feral
Lazy-Ferret, how do cope with the smell of them?
I recall a lad at secondary school kept them & the girls wouldn't go near him, because he always smelled of ferrets

[johnb5177]

They are absolutely great little creatures.......so clever......far too cute....

[Lazy-Ferret]

Originally Posted by Monaro Pete

Being of proper country bumpkin blood. My Dad kept Pole Cats & Ferrets when I was a youngster.
We used to go rabbiting with them. I would find it great fun to spread the nets over the holes & watch the rabbits bolt.
We would always get a ferret that wouldn't come out for ages. There were times when we would just pack up & leave the ferret as it would be getting dark. I often wondered what would happen to the ferret!! Thinking about it now, I expect it would just go feral
Lazy-Ferret, how do cope with the smell of them?
I recall a lad at secondary school kept them & the girls wouldn't go near him, because he always smelled of ferrets

We do a lot of Ferret PR, and spend a lot of time answering those exact questions, people are always amazed that our ferrets do not smell like they were told/remember.

Firstly, ferrets do not go feral, they are a domesticated animal, that were deliberately bread to be albino, by the Romans, so the Peregrine falcon could tell the difference between a brown rabbit bolting from the hole, and go after it, or a white ferret coming from the hole, and ignore it. Unfortunately because of the inbreeding of albinos, to make it the dominant gene, they lost a lot of their ability to cope with parasites they get in the wild, becoming anaemic from flea and tic bites, and succumbing to ear infections from ear mites, and if those do not kill them, and they do not walk up to a fox or dog, as they have no natural fear, then the Lung work, and Heart worm, they get from eating Slugs, will definitely get them... Most do not last more than 5 or 6 weeks in the wild. The lucky ones find their way to a Ferret Rescue.

As for the smell, it's easy, you get them neutered.... It stops the smell... It also makes them friendlier, and in the Jills case, helps to save their life, as once a Jill comes into season, unlike most animals, if they do not mate, they stay in season, and often get an infection of her lady parts, or failing that, she becomes calcium deficient, and her bones thin down. The other thing is quality food, on the old days people fed ferrets some real rubbish, often thongs like bread and milk, ferrets are lactose intolerant. They need food with a very high (in comparison to most other animals) protein content, which helps to reduce the amount of waste product produced, which again reduces the smell. Along with that, keeping their cages clean also makes a massive difference, e.g, ours have their litter trays changed 1 or 2 times a day, and their fleece and cotton bedding changed and washed twice a week.

We often have people comment when they come over how they thought the house would smell, but it does not even smell as bad as a house that has dogs living in it.


We have had a bad year this year, and had several ferrets pass on, so in the 16 years we have had ferrets, we were down to the least we have ever had, since our first year... Today we went to the rescue to get a couple of new ferrets, as a belated birthday present for Suz... Somehow, we came home with 6 new fuzzies!!! 5 are this years kits, and one is an older lady who was used for breading,

4 of them are huge, more like dogs than ferrets, so I am sitting here typing this with 6 extra fluffy monsters running around, and boy are they a lot of fun...

[emjaybee]

That's a biiiiig fluffy monsta!

Fluffzilla!

[Lazy-Ferret]

Originally Posted by emjaybee

That's a biiiiig fluffy monsta!

Fluffzilla!

We now have to find 6 chocolate names for them, and they have to be ones we have not already used.. We are running out as we have used most over the years...

We are creating a short list, and so far we have

Kit and Kat
Mars
Milky way

Suz's apparently needs to go chocolate shopping for inspiration...

[solarman216]

So Clive a lot more to Ferrets than meets the eye, good on you for rescuing some more, we have badgers and foxes here and they get on together, they have different diets and so are fed at different times but they can still be seen together, other side of the fence I might add as at feeding times our two jacks go out as part of their days entertainment to bark at them, they of course take no notice as they have learnt that the fence stops our dogs dead, Rick

[solarman216]

bounty and crunchy come to mind, Rick

[emjaybee]

Boost
Hershey
Twix
(Double) Decker
(Reeces) Pieces
Crunchie
Curly (Wurly)
Bounty
Breakaway
Baby (Ruth)
Caramac
Chomp
Daim (Dime)
Drifter
Flake
Freddie
Fudge
Ripple
Lionel
Marathon
Milka
Nutrageous
Picnic
Rita
Rolo
Starbar
Texan (God I miss those!)
Timeout
Twirl
Wonka
Wispa

... can't sleep...



You can always go trans Atlantic.