Ferret People -- Housing question

[AgilityPup]

So not even sure if I ever shared here, but I added a ferret, Woo, to our family back in the fall. We recently moved some stuff around in our house and we now have a spare room (small, office sized). I am considering allowing her free reign of that room. My only issue is it's got one heater, about 4 feet long. I don't have a way to block off the heater so I am not sure if I will be able to let her loose in there? We heat with hot water via an oil furnace. So the heater gives off heat, but if you leave something in front of it, it doesn't burn like an electric heater would allow.

When she's loose in our living room, there are a lot of heaters and she never touches them, but I am worried about leaving her un-attended with the one in the room. Would I be okay to? Also, I should point out that all heaters are run off one thermostat, so I can't turn just the one off.

 

[frostfell]

hardware cloth to block off the heater from actual contact?

 

[JessLough]

Try touching it after a while, see if it's really hot?

I have a space heater in my room, and it's on when the ferrets are in there unsupervised. I haven't seen one of them touch it, but I'm sure if they did it'd only be the once. That said, I'm only comfortable with that because I know it's not so hot they'll hurt themselves.

 

[GoingPostal]

Hmmm, interesting question, my ferret room is the one bedroom in the house without a radiator but they have never paid any attention to them while in other rooms.

 

[Psyfalcon]

A lot of those radiators can be turned off. Ferrets don't need much in the way of heat, so I'd see if it could be turned way down (or off, depending on how freezing the room gets).

 

[PennyD]

This is a valid point as my ferret displays zero fear of things like fire, vacuums, large animals, etc so a heater would be concerning. When it comes down to it, I don't think Woo will intentionally touch it. However, curiosity killed the cat and could surely leave your ferret with a singed nose.. I would say that hardware cloth or thermal tape is the cheapest fix.