for the ferret fans...

[Linds]

God, I know how hard it is to keep a kit entertained by yourself. My first kit came after my adopted ferret and he had liver cancer and was in no mood for a yougin'

Then I wised up and got two kits at once the next time

Sorry about your two older boys. It's so hard with ferrets, getting them is really just setting you up for heartbreak and an empty wallet. Did you opt for surgery or are you doing the Lupron shots for the adrenal?

I've been lucking and had nothing with my six as of yet. My oldest at 7 is still doing good and my others have all hit the 3 year and over mark so I'm crossing my fingers. But seriously, even without any vet bills they are eating me out of house and home

And yes, litter training is a huge pain! When I was litter training two kits at once with one of those horrible cages with the clip on floors and the tiny doors I about killed someone. It was after a fun session of cleaning that I threw in the towel and ordered the FN

Sorry, I'll stop derailing the thread from pictures! I just like talking ferrets

Brattina-Is that a DEW or a albino? I couldn't tell from the pics

[Brattina88]

Izzy's a DEW. Well... she's turning into one anyway She had much more silver when I first got her. Like a reverse skunk - she had a black stripe down her back. Its more of a dim gray now

And I totally don't mind the ferret talk! I don't get that a lot, so I like it.
My first cage was a super pet, small doors, pop off levels a PAIN to clean! I couldn't reach it, and the ridges got gunk stuck in it. The FN is sooo much easier to clean. I can reach everything - I love the big doors.
Peyton has chosen to go to the bathroom on the smaller levels I tried to squeeze a litterpan on there... the first one was too light and they flipped it over to the bottom - that was fun to clean lol So now I have to squeeze the big one on there (its clips are more secure).

Izzy was so much easier lol

[AllieMackie]

OMG! I knew you would get a third!

She's adorable! Awesome!

[Linds]

That happened to one of mine. From his neck to the tip of his tail it was black. Now at 3 he looks like he got brushed with grease in a few places and that's it.

I like that way of describing it-Reverse Skunk

[JessLough]

yay pics! Thank youuuuuu <3 <3 <3 Peyton. Well, your other two as well, of course

Check your pm!

[AllieMackie]

Originally Posted by Linds

That happened to one of mine. From his neck to the tip of his tail it was black. Now at 3 he looks like he got brushed with grease in a few places and that's it.

I like that way of describing it-Reverse Skunk

Many DEWs start out as "reverse-skunk" silvers, I've been told. My Porom is that way!

11 weeks:


Now:

[Linds]

Originally Posted by Brattina88

And I totally don't mind the ferret talk! I don't get that a lot, so I like it.

Ok good!

Originally Posted by Brattina88

My first cage was a super pet...

Ugh, mine was too. It's lucky it didn't go through the window on cleaning day. I wish I would have been a little less...vigours in dismantling it because I lost a lot of the clips and would have liked the opportunity to put it together again at our house in Wisc. But, oh well. I really hated that cage

But, I do use the bottom pan for a bed while they are out and about.

Did your shelves get to the point of warping so they didn't even fit right?

Originally Posted by Brattina88

Peyton has chosen to go to the bathroom on the smaller levels I tried to squeeze a litterpan on there... the first one was too light and they flipped it over to the bottom - that was fun to clean lol So now I have to squeeze the big one on there (its clips are more secure).

Oh boy, you must have been just loving them at that moment.

My group picks the half levels to use too. But will fight me tooth and nail if I put any litter box there.

I got spoiled because my first boy to his dying day would make it to the litter pan. And then I got kits and they weren't so obliging.

Originally Posted by AllieMackie

Many DEWs start out as "reverse-skunk" silvers, I've been told. My Porom is that way!

It's so funny watching their coat change like that, I love it. She turned out to be a very pretty girl!

Here's my Linus as a kit. I didn't get him till he was a year old so I missed it when it was that dark



And here he is now at three, it's almost all gone

[Labyrinth]

I've had horrible luck with the health of my ferrets. First I got Munky and Mishka. Mishka died about 2 weeks after I got her home for unknown reasons. I got them in Arizona and was living in California at the time so I felt like I had no recourse. A month later we went to Vegas and I picked up two more kits, Pipsqueak and Sasha. Fortunately none of them fell ill while we were still living in California, but shortly after we moved to Texas Munky was diagnosed as adrenal. Poor thing lost almost all of his hair, and developed a couple of mast cell tumors as well. He responded well to the Lupron, so we've kept him on that instead of surgery. About 4 months later Sasha became adrenal as well, so we went the same route with the Lupron. A few months after that she started grinding her teeth and my vet couldn't figure out why. I started seeing a different vet in the same hospital, and he found a large hairball in her stomach. At her pre-op bloodwork it was discovered that she had insulinoma. I was going to have her adrenal tumors removed since she was going to be open anyways, but my vet advised against it as he said the recovery would be much more difficult on her. She only lived for nine more months, passing away at the age of 5 years old. One month after Sasha passed, Munky was diagnosed with insulinoma as well. A few months after that, Pipsqueak was declared adrenal. Munky has had two crashes from his insulinoma in the past two months. The first time I found him completely unresponsive in his cage drooling. The vet stayed late for me and they were able to save him. About a month later at their next vet visit I asked the vet to increase his lupron dosage since he was starting to lose hair again. When I got them home I took them out of the carrier to put them back in their cage for a bit, and found Munky drooling and slightly unresponsive. Luckily he wasn't very far gone so the vet was able to talk me through bringing him out of it at home. I can't imagine not having ferrets, but at the same time I just can't deal with insulinoma anymore. More than anything that's what has gotten me to plan on phasing ferrets out for a while after my current bunch is gone (with the exception of one more so Charlie has someone to grow old with). I can't even express how much I hate this disease.

I started out with superpet cages too. Those things were horrible! Most of my clips broke, so I just used cable ties to keep the bars together. If I tried removing shelves, I'm almost certainly break a shelf clip putting it back. I love my Ferret Nation!

ETA: Munky was a silver mitt when he was a kit, he's now almost completely white. He has a few sporadic dark hairs mixed in on his back though.