Every Day Dangers to Your Ferret.
(All from past Experience)
Fortunately not all Mine
Jazzabelle is stuck! When the picture was taken, she was ten weeks old.
1. Empty Toilet Paper and Paper Towel Rolls: If your ferret has a small enough head to get themselves into the tube they most likely will not be able to get themselves out. Never allow your ferret to play with toilet paper and paper towel rolls
2. Screened Windows Opened From The Bottom: We all know ferrets love to climb, some more than others but an opened window with a screen is the most tempting of all summer activities. Ferrets will dig through the screen and get out of your house, quite likely before you even realize they are in the window. Sometime this activity not only gets them out of the house it finds them facing the dangers of outside away from the protection of their humans. Always open your windows from the top down.
3. Laundry On The Floor: Ferrets most favorite place to sleep is in a pile of dirty laundry in or out of the hamper, laundry basket or on the floor. If you have laundry any where around where your ferrets can get to it always, always carefully put your laundry in the washer one piece at a time to be sure you do not wash your ferret!
4. Dryers: We all know how our ferrets love soft warm places to sleep, what better place than the cloth’s dryer? Never leave your dryer door open and ferrets unattended in the laundry room. I highly recommend you do not allow your ferrets in that room at all, that just saves you the heart ache of not knowing whether your ferret is in the washer or dryer when you can’t fine them.
5. Toilets and Utility Sinks: Keeping the toilet seat down, and keeping anything your ferret can climb onto, to get into a utility sink, away from that sink. Doing so just may save the life of your ferret.
6. Bath Tub: Any vessel that holds water is a potential danger to your ferret, Bath tubs especially. Any amount of water in the tub can pose a danger because if your ferret gets in and can not get out they will be in standing water, that in and of itself will drop their body temperature causing hypothermia, left long enough they will die. They do not have to drown.
7. Vacuum Cleaners: I had one of my smallest ferrets come around when I was cleaning the cage. I had no idea she was there, so when I set the vacuum hose down (without an attachment) still running, she was sucked up into the hose. Fortunately she was too big to go up too far however it did take her breath away. When I got her out she was unconscious and unresponsive. This could have been deadly. I got real lucky.
8. Doors to the Outside: If you have doors in rooms that your ferrets play in that go directly out to the outdoors, I recommend you put some sort of barrier in that doorway to slow them down. Ferrets are fast and sometimes hard to see when they are insistent on getting somewhere. I use Plexiglas in my doorways. I have to climb them but they cannot sneak out any door with the barrier there. All my barriers are 29” high; I have some ferrets that can get over anything lower than 29”.
9. Trash Bins/Bags: You just took the trash bag out of the container to take to the roadside. You get a phone call so you set the bag on the floor. 10 minutes later you are off the phone, pick up the trash carry it to the roadside and go on about your day. It is now 8 PM and you cannot find your ferret. What you do not know yet is your ferret was in the trash bag you set out side to the road for pick up. She/he is gone forever.
June 12, 2005
Important!!!! Hidden danger in the dollar store pools.
Someone had mentioned on the FML the other day about the dollar store inflatable pools that the ferrets could play in .. We had some come in for clinic day on Saturday. the ferrets used them, abused them and deflated them. I did not give it any thought, I allowed 3 of my larger boys to push the deflated pool all over the play room, they were having a ball with it ... I noticed they were chewing on the plug that allows you to blow the pool up. I did not give it much thought, I just grabbed the scissors, cut the plug off, so they had nothing to chew on. I then went about my business... About 5 minutes later I come back into the playroom, one of the fur kids had decided to crawl into the small hole I made by taking the plug off the pool. The fur butt had gotten 1/2 way around the ring in the pool and appeared not to be able to go any further. The pool being plastic like a trash bag I figured her had no air to breath. I frantically and quickly cut him out of the pool ring. What I should have remembered is this, these are human children's toys, they can be and are dangerous to our ferrets.
Please please do not allow your ferrets to play with these items unattended. I got lucky I was there to get the fuzz butt out of trouble.