Day 3, part ii. The vets.

The visit to the vets to get the jill jabs that would take them out of season. (and to stop the smell) Was pretty easy until the hard bit, which was of course included the vet and what seemed even to me a very long needle!

The day started well I got up, made my coffee, switched the computer on, sat down then decided to let the little ones out! The serene morning atmosphere finished right there.

They seemed happy to see me whilst I sat next to the cage and let them out, I cleaned up the cage floor whilst they went off to poo in one of their three designated areas, all of which they annoyingly designated themselves. One in a corner of the kitchen, one in the shower cubicle (at least it's easy to clean from there)and behind the front door!

I let them run a round a while I top up their food and water supplies and then went back to my coffee! Cold! Anyone who knows me knows I hate drinking coffee below any temperature of boiling, if it cools any less than that I hate the taste. Call me strange, yes I am I know.

So I heated up the coffee in the micro and sat down to check my emails, read the days news etc, (I would be lost without my computer and internet access).

The little mites still running around creating havoc, were stopped in their tiny little tracks by the cat who they had encountered in the downstairs bathroom.

Uh oh! You could hear the cats hisses from 2 doors down and at this, Wendy and Primmy started to do the combative ferret dance which is basically them jumping up and down on their tippitoes wagging their puffed up tiny tails to make themselves look bigger and making a chuckling noise. Quite hilarious but as I got there the dog had also decided to intervene and suprisingly Meg went straight for the cat, seemingly to protect the new encumbents! The cat with now three foes hissed and backed itself into a corner trying to push his way out backwards through the wall tiles and attempted to scratch the dogs eyes out.

I did get there in time to pick up the cat and calm him down, he had just been suprised at the suddeness of it all and needed some snuggling time! (he is not the friendliest cat in normal circumstances so this was nothing new to our house, i.e. the dog and cat if they get within 3 feet of each other, well, will fight like cats and dogs!)

I don't want to you to get the wrong idea about life in the fold it's not all antagonistic, everyone knows their place and what's expected of them but as any animal owner/lover knows the unexpected can always happen especially when you least expect it!

Anyways after the cat had been lifted from the fray the ferrets still in attack mode and not realsing, or not wanting to realise, then went after the four long legs that were hovering aruond protectively, of course the dogs! So now it was the dog doing a dance like it was standing on hot coals. I having disposed of the cat to a higher surface where he could now watch the animlas below with distain rather than having to interact with them. Returned to pick up the gyrating little ones who were now following their poor protector around the room. One good thing about ferrets is that they are easily distracted and I managed to get them interested in something else in another room.

Ok it was now relatively quiet, so I went back to the laptop and then put the coffee into the microwave for the third time!

Not long after, mother and daughter found a space between my desk and the wall and went to sleep all rolled up in a cute bundle of legs and fur.

I had earlier put out the animal carrier on the floor so they could get used to it and so putting them in it with a towel for them to burrow into wasn't very difficult, getting my fingers out of the way of their sharp nails whilst I did up the cage front was more so.

So as previously said everything went fine at the vets until the needle appeared.

Now I am just guessing here, but I reckon that the vet who was on the mature side, had been bitten by a ferret sometime in his past. He handled them like they were poisonous, he held Primmy, pinched the skin for entry and then dove in. I then spent the next few moments chasing a ferret around the room whilst it had a needle sticking out the back of its neck! She had gone to bite him as anyone would and he had let go before she had even completed her manouvre so of course she just scarpered!

After I had brought her back trying to soothe her and he had taken the needle out, he then went for little Wendy who knowing something was up wouldnt sit still. I managed to keep her from biting and legging it but not a good time was had by all!

Well here I am four days later and had been told that the jab would start working witihin a couple of a days, well my house still stinks! So I reckon that the job may not have been done properly, so if they still smell this bad in a few days I shall be making a return visit to the vets and hoping that it is someone else this time, or i will have to take him some gloves to wear!

Apart from that everyone at the fold is fine.

Day 1, 2 and 3!

Well day one with the two new ferrets, was exhausting for many reasons!



One was the worry about would they like me, the house all the other animals? Would everyone get along? Another was would they wreck my house like the house rabbit did?(spawn of the devil that one, but she was cute!) Would they smell as bad their reputations suggest? And then mainly would I like them?



Well the chap from the ferret rescue centre came to do the house check and then the plan was to leave them with me if he thought all was ok. We had the chat and it felt like 20 questions, what do you know about ferrets? Why did you want them what are you going to do with them,? i.e. keep them outside in the house, in the cage most of the time or let them run wild, havee tehm for stew or feed them to the pet dragon living in your outhouse. That kind of thing!



Well I must have passed the Q&A as half an hour later I was left with the two bundles of mindless energy! They were like that half because they had been in their cage for an hour and a half in the car and half because that's what they're like!



You could probably now guess the main reason for my exhaustion! Yes you got it right, they never stopped moving... so much for the "Ferrets can sleep up to 22 hours a day." info I got from the books/internet etc.



Maybe it's because of the new house, smells other animals etc but they stayed up for a very long time. As everyone and the chap suggested, I kept them in the cage for the first night to let them get used to the above mentioned, so after a little handling and getting to know each other session thats what we did.



The inside of the cage got wrecked! I had nicely placed bowls, water and bedding and they even had a shelf to jump up on to see about, also hammocks and toys!



I would say within minutes, but that was an eternity compared to how long it took these two to make the cage look like armageddon had struck. the shelf fell down and they burrowed under it spreading bedding and food all over the place.

And then there is the smell...Ferrets normally do not smell anymore than a cat or dog does, normally! But of course I just happen to get two female ferrets ten days after they come into season, (which is every spring and can last through autumn, they're body clocks change once the dasy start getting brighter and longer and of course the opposite happens in winter ). You would not believe the smell! I already have a cat, a dog, a rat and two guinea pigs and so I wouldn't pretend that my house smell as fresh as a daisy but with air freshners strategically placed, at least my friends don't have to hold their breaths.

The ferret smell is strong to say the least, but it's not OMG I'm gonna be sick kind of smell. (Well not to me, maybe to your aged frail grandmother or a houseproud housewife.) It is vey musky, with a hint of musk and oh with extra musk thrown in just for good measure. If your female ferret is kept in season without mating with either a vasectomised or full ferret, she can develop a type of anaemia and then die. If you are not going to breed with her the best thing to do is get her spayed. To get the ferret out of season you get her a jill jab, which is basically hormones and so takes her out of season. You can then get her spayed. Also hurrah! This gets rid of the smell! We just got our jabs today so hopefully in a couple of days I can invite people round without having to hand out pegs at the front door.

We are still getting used to each other but at least I can lift them to my face and get a little kiss now, without them squirming to get put down. We are bonding but I suppose as I am the person that feeds them they do get to know who to suck up to first. I wish they would bond with the dog as quickly as she is fed up of being followed everywhere and having her legs nipped. At the moment they seem to see her as a mixture between enemy and a food stuff. Poor meg but she if bite back once when it mist of hurt and it was quite funny to see the ferret hurtling towards the bathroom in shock.

On the plus though it is so worth it to see them playing all the time they are awake, crawling into tubes and things and to see them sleeping in weird places. The funniest thing that has happened so far is when Primmy, the youngest but biggest, climbed my stairs which are wooden and so have gaps between each one. We heard a scrabbling noise and loooked up to see a confused ferret falling thorough the air only to land safely on the sofa barely missing someones head. Also it is cute to find them asleep in the strangest of places i.e. behind chairs, under my pile of childhood teddy bears (yes it was hard to tell the difference), and then we found one in the box that we keep full of shoes by the back door. Primmys' favourite place so far is to sleep is in any carrier bag she can find, whether it's in a cupboard or on the table still full of shopping.

I am sure day four and onwards can only get more interesting so please keep checking for more updates.

Cat

(No-one was hurt in the making of this blog.)