Ferret.... in East Devon

[Spyda]

For any Ferret lovers in DEVON. Does anyone know anyone who'd like to home a 1 year old ferret??

I have a 1 year old hob (born 3rd June 2007 litter). Dark eyed white roan with black guard hairs which I need to rehome to an experienced ferret home (or enthusiastic novice). Well socialised and friendly. Fantastic with children. Handled daily by my kids as they help look after him. Plays in house and walks on harness with the kids. Bred from working stock but kept as pet until now. Only rehoming him as we're over stocked with males and need to reduce numbers.

Link to album of photos of him taken yesterday:

http://s296.photobucket.com/albums/mm162/khovan/Nipa/

 

[CorvusCorax]

Sorry, no help unless you want to post him to Northern Ireland! Hope you find him a good home.

 

[landyandy]

wish i could help, too far away

 

[Fantasy_World]

Sorry I cannot be of any help I am afraid as I am too far away. I love the critters though and currently have 23 of my own at the moment.
He is a lovely little ferret though and he is a silver mitt by the looks of it, does he have 4 white feet? If so then he is certainly a mitt and is a pale silver.
You could try posting on some ferret forums but be careful if you have bred him yourself as there are a few people on them who are very forthright ( and quite rude in some cases) who are very anti breeding. Quite how anyone would end up with a ferret if none were bred in the first place is beyond me? Anyway good luck with finding him a new home x
You could also try placing an ad on this site www.preloved.co.uk
as it is free to advertise and you do get a few ferret fanciers on there. Just watch out for the anti breeding brigade though as they do browse that site like any other. Seem to think the only place you should get a ferret from is a ferret rescue centre. Hmph!
Caz

 

[Spyda]

Thank you ever so much for confirming what colour he is. He was passed to me by our vet when he was 4 months old. He has a yellow-white coat all over his head, body and legs, with black guard hairs only around his rump and tail area. Eyes are dark and his nose is pink. His coat is still quite yellow from the oils so it's hard to tell exactly how light his coat would be. None of my ferret manuals seemed to list his colouring! Wasn't quite sure how to describe him. A silver mitt you think? Sounds quite posh!!

No, I don't breed them myself. Our local vet passes strays and other unwanted ones onto me and I usually have no trouble rehoming them once they're fit and well and handled a bit. This time of year it's proving a bit more difficult to move on an adult, what with all the baby ferrets also available. Too much competition!

My personal ferrets are all neutered to reduce their smell and to allow me to keep them all together. I had a stray albino female passed on to me by the vets, earlier this year. They'd given her a check up and a Jill jab just before I collected her and although I've kept her in a separate enclosure with my other albino female, I can only assume one of the children had Nipa and Rachael out together at some point since then. She's showing all the outward signs of being pregnant now and I guess from her behaviour she can't be too far away from having them. A week or so? Her belly is balding, her teats are prominent and she's pulling hair out to nest build??? Needless to say, all my children are denying EVER having the boys out with the girls. Hmmmm :smirk:

We plan to rehome Nipa and most of the babies, and then have Rachael and any young we keep neutered ASAP

 

[Fantasy_World]

Aw it does sound like Rachael is pregnant. However it does depend on her age. If she is young and not quite reached sexual maturity it could be a phantom but if she has reached adulthood or is an adult already then she most likely is.
I have a few neutered males which are all old and I bought them already done, as personally with the horses and the other tribe that I have 38 pets in total ( excluding horses) I could not afford to have ferrets neutered unless for health reasons such as cancer/pyometra etc.
All my jills are brought out of season by a hoblet, vasectomised male as it was more cost effective that way as I have a number of jills. Also it allows me to selectively breed any at any time should I choose to. Not that I breed prolifically as I don't advocate unwanted breeding at all in any animal. Most of the ferrets I have bred have been for myself but I have sold a few to friends or people that have asked me for them after seeing mine.
Like I was saying though about whether she is pregnant or not is tricky because some of my jills act in exactly the same way after a mating with a vasectomised male.
Raising the young is pretty easy though and personally I would separate her unless you have done already as not all jills can be maternal if she is sharing her home with another. I usually put mine in another hutch ( most of my ferrets live in a specially built run which has layers) when they are pregnant as it is easier to check on them. Preferably one which has accessible compartments in the sleeping and feeding/playing/pooping area. You will know when she has had them as you will hear the squeaks believe me. She will drink a hell of a lot more too at this time. She may also benefit from some goat's milk too as you may or may not already know that they cannot tolerate cow's milk ( gives them the squirts). I sometimes whisk in a raw egg with the milk as well and give it to all my ferrets as a treat from time to time.
Usually I check on the young after a couple of days so long as mum is eating or you have taken her out of the cage. For the first couple of weeks it is usually advisable to wear latex or even better plastic bag type gloves when checking the nest to make sure all is well and to remove any dead kits. I have usually found any deaths mostly occur in the first few days but mum doesn't always eat them so is best to remove especially if the weather is warm so as not to attract flies and maggots etc.
I have handled kits as young as just under a week old ok providing I wear gloves to mask my scent. Plastic are better as they don't smell like rubber or latex ones do. Always try and put back any nest you have disturbed as you found it especially in the first week so she doesn't know you have been messing. If at all worried about checking or handling you could rub your gloves in some sodden toilet area where she has peed. I managed to get a jill to accept a kit in this way once when I had to remove a runt of ten and pass on to another with a smaller litter so she would accept it and the pee smell certainly worked.
Sorry if you knew all that already.
Good luck with them both though and I hope you find a home for Nipa
Cazx
here are some of my ferrets at this link http://s165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/Cazee34/

 

[Spyda]

Oh your babies are GORGEOUS!!! Oh dear, if Rachael's are only half as cute we'll end up keeping them all. My husband is almost finished converting a 8 x 6 shed into a multi-layer ferret house with tubing leading to the outside run. So.... in theory we'd have the space :grin:

Rachael was found by a lady who discovered her in her back garden, curled up asleep amongst her Guinea pigs! Can you believe it. She telephoned the vet who rang around the local ferret owners but no one was missing her. Find that hard to believe because she was DEFINITELY someone's pet before she became lost. She still had scruff marks when she came to me, so she must have been kept in with other ferrets. But no microchip unfortunately.

The vet estimated her to be around 1 or 2 years of age, but we can't be certain. She is certainly no younger. I have a friend with a vasectomised hob but hadn't taken her as she'd had the Jill jab already. Was checking her regularly, but there have been no signs of her coming back into season so hadn't worried :crazy:

We always keep the occasional strays we take in separately from our own ferts; no point in causing disease, arguments or un-necessary attachments amongst the little guys, but almost as soon as she arrived we decided to keep her. She's just the sweetest natured little ferret. Because she wasn't neutered I'd housed her up with my neutered albino female, but since finding out she may be pregnant have moved Slinky out and set Rachael up with a clean hutch and nest box of her own. I've added some wool nipps and she's made herself a lovely nest. She's loosing the fur from her back in tufts so I thought I'd better help out with some extra bedding!

I guess time will tell if it's a phantom pregnancy or not. I've taken some pictures of her this morning and added them to this album:

http://s296.photobucket.com/albums/mm162/khovan/Rachael pregnant June 2008/

Meanwhile, poor Nipa is still looking for a new family. There must be someone out there to love a cuddly chap like him!? I initially had his full sister but she was rehomed early on and has since proved to be a super little hunter I hear.

 

[Spyda]

You know, looking at Rachael again this afternoon I think she's having a phantom pregnancy. She's far too sleek around the middle to be pregnant, surely? Her tummy is lean and soft with no signs of any lumps inside. She's definitely going through the motions of being pregnant. Anyone know how long these phantom pregnancies last and when she is likely to come back into season?

 

[Fantasy_World]

Aw at Rachael she sounds a right little sweety
Doesn't surprise me about the guinea pig though as we have some ferrets in a hutch that are situated above rabbits. None of them are bothered with each other at all. Even when I have had a few escapees in the garden before now none of them have ever attacked or tried to get in the hutches with my rabbits or guinea pig.

It does sound as though she may be having a phantom though. I had one jill whose abdomen would swell to the size of a tennis ball and you would swear she was pregnant. They do pull fur out, make a bed and teats swell up. If you ever keep more than one jill in that way they also start dragging other jills by their scruff as if they are kits, and just behave like mothers really.

I have just found the following information about phantom pregnancies at the following page ferret info
It says that:
a jill usually goes through a "phantom" pregnancy. During this time she puts on weight, her nipples enlarge and she is more sleepy than usual. This condition may last from 42 to 45 days. She may then have a "phantom" litter. Behaviour differs between ferrets and may include biting and driving all other ferrets and people away from her chosen nest site or trying to drag ferrets and people to her nest site and trying to make them stay there Whatever her behaviour, humour her, as this condition only lasts 3 to 14 days and then her hormones will settle down and she will be her old self once more.

The above does sound about right because some of my jills do react differently. Some do treat others as babies whilst a few get a bit defensive and react to jills that they normally get on well with.
If she is having a phantom though she will come into season fairly soon after the phantom effects have worn off.
If she had been mated though she would have had to have been in season at the time though to produce a mating as otherwise the jills won't have anything to do with the hobs.
You said she had had a jill jab earlier this year though before you got her. Has she shown any signs of being in season since you have had her?
I know sometimes it can be missed. I have missed one of my jjills being in season and the hoblet got to her first and I have been promising a friend a mating with his really nice hob as he wanted some more ferrets and she is such a sweetie that it has been planned for a while. I saw she was in season last week and she looked like she was coming into it but it turned out that her vulva was reducing in size and not increasing so I had missed it damn. The hoblet had got to her before I did. She isn't one that really swells up as some do and so it is harder to tell. She may or may not come into season again now this year as this was her second and they usually stop around August/Sept so if she has a phantom then that may be it for this year.
She would have been the only jill to have bred this year and I don't ever crossbreed either as I keep records of all the ones that have come from friends or have been bred so I know their lineage.
The pics you saw of kits were from last year from that same jill. I kept back one jill from that mating. A friend had another jill and the other hobs were sold to people I knew.
The other kit the little silver one is Chesney. I had been given his mum Uno, by a friend and she is blind in one eye. Unknown to me she was pregnant and she gave birth to 3, 2 died. She must have been getting on as I know the litter numbers and quality reduce with age. Anyway at around 3 weeks she virtually rejected him so he came in the house and was fed and raised by us. He became silly tame, would come to call. Trained him with a squeaky ball and treats. He would play with one of our cats who was an older kitten at the time and they would play safely too. he is a real fave and was dad to the litter last year.
I have lost a few favourites over the years and I have always wanted a son or daughter from them as once they go their lineage goes with them and when you get really nice ones that could be used for showing and so on you want to keep them ( well I do). So I made the choice to mate her last year. She would have been about 2 at the time. Apart from Chesney she was only my second ever litter. I did have another last year which was by accident and she had ten so obviously had to find homes for them but ended up keeping a few jills back. I won't be making the same mistake again and like I said I will selectively breed not mass produce as some others do hence the reason why there are countless poor little mites dumped all across the UK.
Anyway it would be nice if she is pregnant because I think every owner should breed at least once as it gives you a wonderful experience as well as the knowledge and skills to help care for ferrets from the first day they were born. Unless you get the chance to work with a pregnant one at a rescue or foster one that has been dumped in that condition then how can anyone learn the husbandry skills needed to help care in case something does go wrong, if anyone does end up all of a sudden with a pregnant ferret?
We were supplementing our kits when old enough and mum was looking a bit worn out with warmed goats milk and later as a step onto solids with a baby food that consisted of pure chicken or turkey in a paste, they loved that lol.
Please let us know how you get on and I will try and source out an old friend who is into ferrets ( haven't spoken in ages) who I think lives near to your direction and he may be interested as he did like silvers mind you they are my fave colour too.

Good luck
Cazx

 

[amberb]

hi, he is stunning. i am looking for an entire hob / castrated hob to save on the price of jill jabs (lol) for my 5 little girls. i am in newton ferrers if that is any good to you, i would be glad to take him on.

 

[Fantasy_World]

Hiya Amberb an entire hob would be of no use to you for this purpose unless you plan to have him vasectomised. Otherwise you would soon end up with vast numbers of ferrets if using an entire male to bring 5 jills out of season.
Castrated hobs occasionally work since ferrets are induced ovulators and only release eggs through use of a stimulant be that via intercourse with a hoblet or hob or else by injections of hormones ( jill jab). However they are hit and miss and once you have chosen to have a ferret castrated there is no going back. The mere smell of a hob or a hob playing and subsequently mounting a jill can bring some out of season but not all. Therefore it would be more prudent and cost effective to have a hob and get him vasectomised. The operation costs more than a castration and depending on what the vet recommends you usually have to leave him about 6 weeks before he is able to be used for jills as there is a slight chance for those early weeks he may have residual sperm in any tubes that remain and could get them pregnant.
Seeing as the jills may come into season anytime now before August/September then you will still likely have to use jill jabs for the remainder of this season. When I had my old lad done many moons ago he was done at the start of the season and I only had around 3 jills then. None were near to being in season at all so it all worked out well.
If you get a hob and have him done you may be as well to use him to bring them out of season next year although he would be fine to over winter with the jills and would then be ready for any ones that may come into season early as one of mine started as early as February one year.
I would wholly recommend having a hob and getting the op done though because it is a more natural alternative to the jill jab when getting jills spayed is a financial concern. More than half of my 23 are jills hence the reason I could not afford spays.
The only downside to it is phantom pregnancies and the risk of inflammation of the womb or infection. I have only had two experiences of the latter and that is in 8 years of owning ferrets and numerous matings though.
I also have worries about repeated uses of the jill jab over a number of years after reading various journals and articles about it so long term I would personally either recommend spaying ( if there is never any intention to breed at all) or to get a hob vasectomised.
Good luck
Caz

 

[amberb]

Hi Oatcake, thank for taking the time to give me all that informaition, it has all been very helpful. You of course are right, i am after an entire hob that i can have "vasectomised", not a castrated hob as i put before. Really interested reguarding what you said about the long term use of the jill jab, i will certianly look more into that. thank you.