ratherastory | Does anyone own a pet ferret?

I have some friends with ferrets.

Mostly they, well, ferret. They like to look inside things and under things. They can startle the hell out of you trying to climb up your leg. You need to watch out and not step on them, and they're sociable, but, like most small animals, can be intimidated by humans.

And whatever you do, don't let them in your sock drawer. (Ginger built herself a nest out of like 50 socks.)

Any other questions, PM me.

Thanks! Sent you a PM. :)

I don't keep ferrets anymore, but at one point I had two absolutely adorable and sweet pet ferrets that I still love to talk about ;) So if that's in anyway helpful just let me know.

Yay!

So, um, I'm writing a story (not SPN) in which one of the characters gets turned into a ferret. I just want to know what they're like, what goes into the whole care & feeding beyond the bare bones of what's out there on the internet. Wacky anecdotes, personalities, all that. I've never had ferrets and I want to do them justice. Are they cuddly? What do they do all day, especially if their owner is at work? What do they do when they get startled/frightened by something?

So talk away! I am all ears. :)

I've never owned a ferret, I am just registering the possibilities that the query combined with the "zombies improve any story" tag raise in my mind. You are writing zombie ferrets, y/y? Possibly Sam is allergic to zombie ferrets and there is respiratory distress? Or Dean trips over a zombie ferret and fucks up his leg? Or both these things?

LOL

Nah, that was just me being silly. It's for a H50 fic. :)

H50 fic with ferret? <3 I'm so impatient now!

Yup. It's still coming together in my head, but it should be cracky and fun. :)

I think there's a correspondence between cat allergy and ferret allergy, although ferrets have a lot less dander.

Poor Sammy...

I do not own a ferret but I lived with one for like a year and a half. Well okay that's not strictly true; I lived with an asshole boyfriend who had a ferret. Turned out? The ferret was way better company.
Still I picked up a few things up because they are cute as shit and tremendously interesting, an amazingly complex creatures. So if you need another brain to pick let me know :)

I am happy to pick as many brains as are made available. I'm looking for anything about ferret personalities/wacky anecdotes that's beyond the bare bones of what I've been able to find on the internet. Although I'm sorry you had to put up with an asshole in order to get to know the ferret.

Of the top of my head the things i remember best where that Xena made a lot of noise when she was happy. She did this chirping thing called dooking very cute.
When she was scared she would hiss and try to find somewhere to hide but she would never turn her back on what was scaring her.

I remember one time she was messing around in the cupboard under the bathroom sink she caught kind of stuck and made the most awful heart wrenching scream. There was no way in hell you could ignore the sound.

She snored a lot. loudly. She ate a lot of raw meat but would steal cat food which was not ideal for her mostly because it made her flatulent... in the worst possible way.

She was probaly the snoopiest animal i ever met but also very sweet.
hope that helped a little.

I am currently the "guardian" of one obnoxious 4 1/2 month old ferret who drives me batshit crazy and I love him dearly for it. I've had ferrets for years now (Finn is my 6th) & I've been through all sorts of crazy --of course I've always had a few at a time before. If you still need some help, let me know. I'll answer what I can.

Oh, yay! I can use all the help I can get. Like I've been saying to others, I'm looking for all the stuff about owning and loving a ferret that's not the dry bare bones information I found on the internet, mostly what their behaviour is like under various circumstances. Basically, I'm trying to figure out what would happen to someone who mostly accidentally becomes a ferret owner for the first time and has no idea what they're getting into. :)

I hope you can still use some ferret information; life got in the way this afternoon, so I'm a little slow to put my two cents in.

I see a lot of more technical info, so I thought I'd share some of my personal experience.

Each one has had a completely different personality --Trevor was exactly what you'd expect in a ferret --nosey, into everything, took anything that wasn't nailed to the ceiling --literally. I had telephone cords and power cords strung across my ceiling to keep him from trying to drag them to his secret hide away in the closet, where he would stash anything he "borrowed" or was given (the boy had an extensive beanie baby collection no one was allowed to touch but him. Even me. I tried to pick them up, he'd hiss at me and try to pull them away). He had this "I'm the Boss" attitude about him, even once he got sick and didn't get around as well. He got cancer (whoever said they get cancer a lot is, unfortunately, right) and had to be put to sleep, but even with a tumor large enough he couldn't use his hind legs, it only slowed him down a little, he would still drag himself all over the house and kept up fairly well with the others. (it's not like it sounds, his condition was being watched VERY VERY carefully)

Liam was the stereotypical "blonde" joke --the boy was just happy to wake up alive each day --I swear you could hear the, "I'm awake. I'm breathing. Alright. I'm awake. I'm breathing. Alright." going through his head most days. He was mellow and easy going, a definite follower. He did have a fascination with outlets, however, and liked to lick them. No matter what I did, I could not get him to stop...baby plug-in things he would work at until he pulled them out, bitter apple spray only drew him in to them more, he would weasel his way behind furniture to get to them. Like I said, he wasn't the smartest bulb in the light fixture, but he was love in a fuzzy little body.

Ferrets have a fascination with styrofoam-y, plastic-y things (think pipe wrap insulation and old fold-out foam couch beds) and I had a little girl who loved to eat it. The only one I've ever had who did, though. She also loved feet and would hide and ambush you from under things when you walked by. Toes, especially. Used to drive me nuts.

Ferrets tend to be directly underfoot, like kittens or small children and inlaws, and stepping on them with their fragile bones would be horrible, so I've given up shoes when inside and the ferrets are out. Hence them always underfoot. You develop this shuffle, where you scuff your feet rather than walk normally to avoid stepping on anyone. This, however, draws them in and the problem continues in an infiniate loop until one of you goes crazy --and you will always go crazy before the ferret does. "Clown" is not an accurate enough word for how crazy these guys are, no matter what their personality is. There's this happy dance they do, I swear to Chuck, that, once you've seen it, you can never unsee it...it's hopping and diving and weaving and pouncing all rolled into one big elaborate dance that is just hysterical to watch.
Most ferrets don't make a lot of noise, soft noises while playing, dooking and squeeking and the occasional honk, but anything loud or resembling screaming is not of the good. Finn used to scream when I'd put him down or leave a room when I first brought him home; the screaming sounds an awful lot like a baby screaming, it is instantly creepy. If you hear it, however, something is definitely wrong (in Finn's case, he was spoiled rotten before he came to me, so, diva issues) and they need help from something, real or imagined (in Finn's case, always imagined).

This got a little long, but the truth is that ferrets are FUN. They're crazy and steal your heart so fast and, honestly, I've always been able to count on them for a laugh or to distract me from whatever is bothering me. They're not really so different from any other kind of pet, they just do more stealing and dancing than most cats and have a much shorter life span...that's probably why they're so full of mayhem and joy all the time.

LOL I hope I'm guessing right what this is about.

You probably are, yes. :)

I need a break from all the serious/long stuff I'm writing. So I figure a little crack!fic wouldn't hurt. ;)

Okay, so ferrets ferret EVERYTHING. And by ferret I mean they snoop and they search and they stick their nose in ANYTHING and if you make a circle with your hands they have to see what's inside. Am not kidding. It's rather adorkable.

For their size, which is much bigger than a mouse and most rats in general, they can squeeze ANYWHERE. Which helps aid their 'look-into-everything-oh-my-god-can-I-see-what's-in-there?' quest.

They sulk. That's right, they sulk if they don't get their own way. They can hold grudges. They love shiny things. (My toes, when they were painted with red glitter polish, often danced away as fast as possible from the intrigued ferret.) They have such personality it'll make you wonder what it would be like if they could talk. They can bounce and run really fast. They're hyper until they fall asleep, and sometimes, they're hyper right UP to the point where they fall asleep. One minute, they're running and the next, they drop. YOU run to see what's wrong with them, only to find him fast asleep. >_<

They sleep for the good majority of the day (and night). They like sleeping in enclosed spaces. We'd gotten ours a hammock which he loved, but he always seemed restless. We learned about the dark, enclosed spaces bit and threw a blanket over him. Problem completely solved.

They will drag things to build stuff to jump over and play in or generally get their own way, they will do anything for Ferretone. (That was by far the best review for it ever. And yes, it's like little ferret crack.) They will love you and let you cuddle...until they're done, and then they squirm and twist until they're out of your arms and can go trotting off to something new and fun. If they have play material and seem bored with it, like plastic tubes to run through, all you have to do is shift it by maybe an inch. It instantly becomes something new that they have to explore.

In sum, ferrets are fun. You always have to watch, though, because the potential to get them lost somewhere is very easy. It's not even the lost part, it's also the stuck part. Ferrets have been known to get into pipes, freezers, walls, and get stuck and unable to get out. Some lucky owners have found them. Others have not. We kept ours in his own separate back room and never let him out. Better safe than sorry. He had a huge, and I mean, HUGE back deck room to himself, though. It was a paradise, so we never felt badly for not letting him out.

~Nebula

Wow, that is fantastic! Thank you for this. :)

My daughter had a ferret when she was in high school. Peter was by far the funniest critter we ever had. He reminded me a lot of a kitten, what with the jumping and playing and spazzing out. He pretty much lived in her room, and if she left anything sweet laying around, including half-empty Coke cans, he would grab them and hide them under the bed.

He loved to lick my nose, was very sweet and affectionate.

We had big dogs at the time, English mastiffs, and several cats, and a chinchilla, and the problem with all those animals is that they didn't mingle well, which is why Peter had to stay in Ashley's room. One night he got out and Tootsie, one of the dogs chased him down the hall to our bedroom. And then Peter chased her right back the other way! He was fearless, and probably would have been fine out and about, but I didn't trust the cats.

Ferrets have a tendency to get cancer of the spleen, which is what Peter died from. I'm hoping that's not info that you need!

ETA: They're also kind of stinky. Very musky.

Edited 2011-06-20 14:16 (UTC)

Eep! No, no dying ferrets in my near future. I'm just planning a cracky little fic involving a ferret and I want to make sure I get it mostly right.

The only thing I know about ferrets from working at the vet is that they smell horrific and they ALWAYS get spleen cancer. But I'm told they are adorable?

Spleen cancer? Yikes. Good thing I'm writing crack and not a deathfic. :P

I've been in contact with exactly one ferret and it smelled very musky but it wasn't too bad.

Thanks!

There was a special on PBS several months ago regarding ferrets that you might want to try to find to watch it (or even look for it as a rental). That would give you a visual on some of their antics, as well as visual for their colors, etc. The thing I remember most is one of the people said that a ferret is a perpetual 2-year old and you have to stay on your toes.

Hope that helps.

The show to which I referred earlier is "The Pursuit of Excellence." It originally aired on PBS in 2007, but I saw it last summer. I actually forgot how wacky some ferret owners are in their own right until I found these two clips:

This one is sweet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07MJyMuZ_-o&feature=relmfu

This one is strange: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRfwNjw82GY&NR=1

There are also lots of videos on YouTube that I found entertaining, but won't post links to. Just search "Ferret v." anything if you're interested in seeing a ferret in action.

Ironically I'm adopting one this Sunday! A friend is moving to CA where they are illegal. I've never owned one before, so this will be an adventure!

Does anyone own a pet ferret?

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