I have owned ferrets since 1987 and have been running the shelter officially since 2002 (although I was doing it unofficially for a number of years before that). I'm also involved with the Three Rivers Ferret Council, and have given two talks on how to care for sick and post-surgical ferrets.

Bob Church’s Approach to Nip Training

Bob Church uses “ferret language” to stop his ferret Rummy from biting hard.

Rummy and I had an interesting start in our relationship. When I first met the little female ferret, I was warned she would nip on occasion. Ignoring this good advice, I decided to give her a bit of food. She dunked her head into the bag as I was pouring and when I moved her, she lived up to the warning and latched onto my thumb. It was a good latching as well; it took a few minutes to convince her the food was preferable to my flesh.

Despite my lacerated thumb, Rummy came home with me. For the first couple of weeks, she continued to nip, sometimes quite hard. It became quite apparent that I had to make a choice — either learn to live with the occasional nip, or figure out a way to convince her nipping was not an acceptable option without resorting to corporal punishment.

Reasons For Nipping

My first task was to attempt to understand the reason behind the behavior. Ferrets bite for a number of reasons. Some of the most common motivations include: just to get their way, out of instinct leftover from wild polecat behaviors (in hybrids), because of fear, while play fighting, when dominating another ferret, during territorial defense, from a reaction to pain, from poor human socialization, and as part of a mating ritual.

It wasn’t easy to discern Rummy’s rationale for nipping, but I finally decided Rummy bit for a couple of reasons. First, Rummy is a bit high-strung and excitable for a ferret, making her prone to sudden hard bites. Not just warning or defensive bites either; it didn’t take a lot for her to forget the rules of play and sink her teeth into tender skin a bit harder than she should. Second, Rummy spun around and gave a good nip when she was being picked up. I think she discovered that a good hard bite made people leave her alone, which was especially important when she wanted to get into mischief.

My strategy was not to stop Rummy from biting; play biting is an important aspect of ferret psychology, and I think the prevention of normal behavior borders on cruelty. Rather, I wanted to convince Rummy to stop biting people when being picked up and to teach her that soft bites were appropriate, but hard bites were not. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Did I mention you should have adhesive bandages on hand?

Training To Allow Being Picked Up

My first task was to get Rummy strongly bonded to me — not as an owner, but as a companion. Several times a day, I picked up Rummy and did a light scruff. Then I carefully washed her face, eyes and ears with a damp washcloth, afterward using it to clean her bottom in a similar fashion. I used short, soft strokes to simulate a loving ferret mother’s tongue. I kept my fingers away from Rummy’s mouth while washing because the temptation to nip a finger was sometimes too difficult for her to ignore. It only took a week or so for Rummy to start looking forward to this grooming ritual, and her nips at being picked up all but stopped.

My next task was to figure out which treats were Rummy’s favorites. I experimented with a number of healthy treats for ferrets, and Rummy made it clear she would do just about anything for salmon jerky. So, now I picked her up, groomed her and then gave her a favored treat before setting her down so she could run off to a hidey-hole to consume her snack in private. The technique worked wonders. After just two weeks, Rummy stopped nipping! Well, not when playing, but I — or anyone — could pick her up without fear of the “spin-n-nip.”

After several weeks, I started to randomly not give a treat or groom her so she got used to being handled without being bribed. Over time, the treats became a once-a-day occurrence, but I continued to give her a fast, light grooming with my fingers each time I picked her up. Rummy became very bonded to me because of this — she followed me around, slept on my lap and became trustworthy enough for me to allow her to groom my eyebrows and ears.

Training To Bite Gently

Phase two was to teach her how to bite without hurting people: a sort of “play without pain” approach to ferret wrangling. Again, I resorted to copying normal ferret behaviors during this training, this time acting like a combination of mother and sibling.

My approach was to initiate play and wrestle Rummy with my hand as if I were any other ferret. As long as her play bites were soft, I continued to play. The moment her play bites became too hard, I made a loud squealing sound, said “No!” in a sharp voice, then scruffed her and held her to the floor for about five seconds. As you can see, I essentially followed the same “play fight” rules as any other ferret — squealing and scruffing come straight out of the “How To Be A Ferret” handbook. It took Rummy all of two days to understand what I wanted from her, and her hard play bites simply stopped. It was that simple.

In just a few weeks, I turned a nasty nipper into a well-bonded and sweet companion, one that could be trusted with other people, and one that considered me a trusted companion and friend. This was not accomplished by punishment, but by using the ferret’s inborn “behavioral rules” to adjust behavior. The advantage of this approach is that it is low-stress for the ferret and it is easy for the ferret to understand. The lack of corporal punishment is also good; if you try to stop a negative behavior using fear of pain, it is possible you will only make the situation worse.

Rummy and I are now great friends, and I can trust her without hesitation. I just needed to learn how to speak her language and communicate on her level.

Shelter closed to surrenders

Barb speaking:

After 15 years of running the Hide-E-Hole Ferret Rescue, I am retiring. I only have a few ferrets left to adopt out and I’m not taking in any more owner surrenders.

Please go to the Animal Rescue League in Pittsburgh on Hamilton Avenue. They vet their ferrets with the shelter vet, Dr. Robert Wagner (a local exotics vet) and do not automatically euthanize if the ferret is sick. I will be working with them (I hope) to educate people about ferrets. They have recently built a new facility and I am hopeful they will be able to care for local ferrets until someone else starts another ferret-only rescue.

I’m very conflicted about this since I love ferrets, but my husband has retired and I no longer have the time and energy necessary to do this properly.

I am willing to help anyone wanting to start a rescue, I will still take back any previously adopted ferrets if it doesn’t work out, and I am happy to answer questions and offer advice.

I am sincerely grateful for all my wonderful volunteers and adopters. I couldn’t have done this without you. I’ve met some wonderful people over the years and I’m not disappearing.

Thank you for 15 years and helping me help over 1000 ferrets.

I have opened comments for this post. Was I helpful to you?

List of ferrets on Petfinder

If you’d like to put in an application, please fill out this form: Adoption Application. We usually have more ferrets than those listed due to the time needed to photograph and describe the ferrets.

Please note: We serve the greater Pittsburgh, PA area. If you are more than a 2-hour drive away (check Google Maps) there is most likely another shelter closer to you. There is a shelter in Central PA, Eastern PA, MD, NJ, NY, VA, several in OH … check the listing here if you live outside my area: Ferret Shelter Listing.

CLOSED FOR CHRISTMAS VACATION: The shelter will be closed for Christmas vacation from December 14 through the New Year. If we have any large seizures of ferrets, I will post to let you know. If we have ferrets left to foster for Christmas, I will post them right before vacation. I hope all the ferrets out there and all their owners have a wonder, fun, Christmas/Holiday season! If you would like suggestions for good gifts for your ferret, let me know.

Food, glorious food — or is it?

Ferret eating duck soup

Ferret eating duck soup

Watch this video about why the first several ingredients should contain meat (click on the date):

THINK YOU KNOW HOW TO READ A PET FOOD LABEL?Today, marketing research shows that a major decision factor for pet…

Posted by Rodney Habib on Thursday, December 17, 2015

Barb’s comment:

The ingredients in one food I use: Turkey. Chicken, Chicken Meal, Salmon Meal, Menhaden Meal, Chicken Fat, Peas (EVO dog little bites chicken)

Another food I use: Boneless chicken, chicken meal, chicken liver, whole herring, boneless turkey, turkey meal, turkey liver, whole eggs, boneless walleye, whole salmon, chicken heart, chicken cartilage, herring meal, salmon meal, chicken liver oil, chicken fat, red lentils, green peas (Orijen cat/kitten chicken)

Some foods people feed their ferrets:

8in1 Ultra Blend: Chicken Meal, Ground Yellow Corn, Brewers Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Animal Fat, Corn Oil, Dried Eggs, Cane Molasses, Beet Pulp,

Drs Foster & Smith Ferret: Chicken Meal, Brown Rice, Chicken Fat, Dried Egg Product, Natural Flavor, Lamb Meal, Salmon Oil, Brewer’s Dried Yeast, Vitamin E Supplement,

Totally Ferret Complete: Chicken meal, Wheat flour, Corn meal, Chicken fat, Brown rice, Cooked Potatoes, Dried Egg product, Catfish Meal,

Are you noticing a pattern? How many blue ingredients are in your ferret’s food? Just because it says “ferret food” does NOT make it a good food! I don’t like Totally Ferret. The ferrets who have come into the shelter on that food have rough, dry fur. Totally Ferret could have been that food in the video. So could Ultra Blend. What is the most common foods I see people feeding their ferrets? Ultra Blend and Marshall’s. What about Marshall’s?

Marshall’s Premium: Chicken By-Products (organs only), Chicken, Chicken By-Product Meal, Corn Meal. Dried Beet Pulp, Brewers Dried Yeast, DL-Methionine, L-Lysine,

No, Marshall’s is NOT the most horrible food in the world! The improvement may be recent, but it does show pet food companies are paying attention to those of us who scream: Read The Ingredients!

What other foods do people feed their ferrets?

Wild Harvest by Walmart: Chicken Meal, Ground Rice, Chicken Fat, Papaya, Pineapple, Chicken Digest, Rasin Juice, Banana Puree, Fish Oil, Garlic Oil, Dried Egg Product,

Where’s the meat? Ick!

How about the 8in1 sold at Walmart? This one is a terrifying 30% protein, 8% fat (and most of the protein is from grains which ferrets don’t even digest):

8In1 Pet Products: Ferret Food Premium Ferret Food: Poultry By-Product Meal, Brewers Rice, Ground Yellow Corn, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken Fat, Brewers Dried Yeast, Taurine

Legalize ferrets in California!

Ollie

Ollie

Do you live in California? Are you considering getting a job there?

Ferrets are illegal in California, and the rest of the world thinks this is rather dumb. In all the years, there have been NO feral colonies either in California (they may be illegal but there are lots of ferrets in CA) or surrounding states where they are legal.

If you own a ferret in California, you risk having your good buddy seized and killed or at the very least deported to a neighboring state.

Please join the effort to legalize ferrets in California. Join the Ferret Legalization Effort. If you live in California, sign the petition. If you don’t live in California, donate money to help the effort and spread the word near and far.