# New to ferrets & saying Hi!



## ChilliPeppa (May 26, 2012)

Hi All...

I'm new to ferret owning - it was a bit of an accident to be honest - Gin & Tonic belonged to my friends son & they were going to be put on Gumtree so my knee-jerk reaction was to say I'd take them. Luckily my vet is awesome and loves ferrets (phew!) so he's been brilliant - we started out by going to get them vaccinated and one of them had a wound that wouldn't heal so we arranged to get it looked at in a wee operation... well, wouldn't it just turn out to be a tumour that's really rare to find in ferrets - luckily removal is usually all that's needed so we're hopeful that she'll be ok now. Anyway, I just wanted to say hi - and I look forward to chatting to everyone on here 

I think I attached a pic - if it's worked then that's Gin...asleep...which is the only time she's not causing mayhem and chaos! 

S


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## DKDREAM (Sep 15, 2008)

Hi and welcome to the world of ferrets 

welldone on rescuing Gin and Tonic, love their names. are they both female? and can i ask are both neuterd? if not then they will need neutering soon. Gin is a lovely silver mitt ferret, as she gets older she will get more silver flecking. What colour is Tonic.


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## ChilliPeppa (May 26, 2012)

Hi!

Yes they're both female and they've been spayed already so thankfully I don't have to worry about that. It's already been a bit of a baptism by fire with the tumour and all.

Tonic's pretty much the same as Gin but slightly darker and without the silver mitts.


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## DKDREAM (Sep 15, 2008)

ChilliPeppa said:


> Hi!
> 
> Yes they're both female and they've been spayed already so thankfully I don't have to worry about that. It's already been a bit of a baptism by fire with the tumour and all.
> 
> Tonic's pretty much the same as Gin but slightly darker and without the silver mitts.


she sounds like a polecat. what kind of Tumour did she have? How old are they? what do you feed?


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## Fizzie (Mar 3, 2013)

Hi ChilliPeppa!! I'm new here, and new to ferrets myself. I'm hoping to bring a ferret into my new home once I move.


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## justonemore (Jan 23, 2013)

Hi Chillipeppa,
I,m new to Ferrets i have 3 cats one bolts when she sees treacle ( rescue ferret had her about 3 weeks now) and one hasnt realy met her yet as she spends most of her time either outside or asleep on my bed now for Dave hes a persian and doesnt have a lot in the way of brain power so treacle thinks it,s great fun to chase him round and round the coffee table when they have a good speed up she just waits for him to turn up and then round the other way they go till hes rescued and put on top of shelf out of reach, Yesterday Dave was minding his own business asleep on a chair when she crept along the back of chair and launched her self on to the seat i,m not sure who was more shocked Dave or treacle i,m not sure she realized he was there , but i do keep a close eye on whats going on so that i can rescue Dave from the wriggley beastie before things go to far .I,m hoping that one day they will be able to play nicely together .
She is a realy sweet girl but doesnt seem to like my husband much but were also working on that . SO MUCH TO LEARN ..i.m hoping that when we come back from a few days away thats Me , Husband 3 dogs and a ferret that we can look into finding her a playmate.fingers crossed. sorry if i,ve waffled on.


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## DKDREAM (Sep 15, 2008)

justonemore said:


> Hi Chillipeppa,
> I,m new to Ferrets i have 3 cats one bolts when she sees treacle ( rescue ferret had her about 3 weeks now) and one hasnt realy met her yet as she spends most of her time either outside or asleep on my bed now for Dave hes a persian and doesnt have a lot in the way of brain power so treacle thinks it,s great fun to chase him round and round the coffee table when they have a good speed up she just waits for him to turn up and then round the other way they go till hes rescued and put on top of shelf out of reach, Yesterday Dave was minding his own business asleep on a chair when she crept along the back of chair and launched her self on to the seat i,m not sure who was more shocked Dave or treacle i,m not sure she realized he was there , but i do keep a close eye on whats going on so that i can rescue Dave from the wriggley beastie before things go to far .I,m hoping that one day they will be able to play nicely together .
> She is a realy sweet girl but doesnt seem to like my husband much but were also working on that . SO MUCH TO LEARN ..i.m hoping that when we come back from a few days away thats Me , Husband 3 dogs and a ferret that we can look into finding her a playmate.fingers crossed. sorry if i,ve waffled on.


Hi and Congratulations on your new family member.

It sounds to me like Treacle needs to learn how to live with cats and play with them properly, have you tried when treacle is going towards the cats clapping and saying NO treacle and if she continues go and pick her up and look into her face and say NO again, repeat this over and over and hopefully she will learn it is naughty, "thedogsmother" on here maybe able to help you as she has 2 ferrets who live along side cats and dogs fine.


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## thedogsmother (Aug 28, 2008)

Ive got 2 ferret as DKDREAM said and 4 cats, the cats were here first and all I did was give them their space and allow them to come to terms with the ferrets being there, I let the cats have their freedom to leave the room so they didnt have to interact, but my 4 are too nosey to stay away long .

The cats and ferrets play in a very similar way so they do like interacting when the toys come out, they love dabird and play together with that. I think its really important not to allow the ferret to get too hyper or even nippy with the cats, my two were very well trained when they came here and understood the NO command so that made it easier.

Anyway, theyve gone from being curious to sharing cushions together, so basically I just wouldnt rush intros, they will come round eventually.


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## ChilliPeppa (May 26, 2012)

DKDREAM said:


> she sounds like a polecat. what kind of Tumour did she have? How old are they? what do you feed?


Hiya... She had a mast cell tumour which turned out to be a hemangiosarcoma (hope I spelt that right!), which the vet says is so rare with ferrets that there's not much research been done. They said that removal is usually curative and the lab guys said it was all taken out so they're confident that it won't come back. The girls are about 4 or 5 years old so even if we weren't looking out for further issues with Tonic, we'd still be taking them for regular check ups.

The story with Tonic is that when we got her she had a wound in her shoulder that we were told had been the result of a dog bite about a year ago. It kept starting to heal but then would open up again. As soon as we took them we booked them into the vets - it's a standard thing we do when we bring new animals home anyway but they needed vaccinations and that shoulder needed a look. One of our vets is specialising in small furries as part of some ongoing training and he loves ferrets so we're really lucky in that respect. The vet said that they'd do an op to see what was stopping the healing but at the time it didn't look like anything other than a scabby wound. So we booked the op for a couple of weeks later because they'd just had their first set of vaccinations and it was when we went back the area was starting to look dodgy, there was a lump starting to form under the scab. The vet told us then that he suspected there was a tumour there and it needed to come out asap. The lab reckons it had just started to turn nasty so we literally got it in time.

At the moment we feed them a ferret food that a friend recommended but we're also giving them a bit of cat food - when Tonic had her tumour taken out, she also had 2 teeth removed (bless her she wasn't having a good time) so the vet said some softer food would be the way forward for a wee while. I'd love some advice on what to feed them. I know it wasn't my most responsible move to take them on without a clue what I'm doing but it was either me or Gumtree, so I'm reading everything I can and ringing friends who have ferrets if I'm concerned. Lucky for me they're so tame and friendly that they make the steep learning curve a pleasure


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## DKDREAM (Sep 15, 2008)

Hi Chillipepper 

I am so glad the vet has been able to remove Tonic's tumour in time, welldone on spotting it and getting her the treatment she needed. She is one very lucky girl, I hope she has many years left.

What kind of ferret food do you currently feed Vitalin, Alpha? I would recommend you feed the girls raw meat as ferrets are carnivores and a raw meat diet is best for them, you can supliment this with dry, the best raw meat to start with is mince meat, as its easily chewed and swallowed.


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