how random! weird hack...any ferret experts?

[PucciNPoni]

Got attacked by a FERRET of all things!

My friend and I went on a walk round the "neighborhood" tonight - had to go thru a series of gates in which there is livestock, never a problem. However, sometimes the very last gate is chained and locked (the farmer doesn't mind horse riders coming thru, so long as gates are shut behind so we are careful of this, but he does lock it at times to keep dog walkers out during calving/lambing etc). So I had joked that after we'd managed to get thru all the gates the end one would be locked....

However, we got to the end, and I noticed something was out on the road that looked like a hutch of sorts. It's a common area for fly tipping

and when we got closer, sure enough, it was a hutch, on it's end so the bottom was open. Inside was a very skinny white albino ferret. My friend and I sort of went "Huh...how odd". And the ferret, upon hearing human voices sprang to life, and started running at the horses. My Welsh D, bless her, is so good round livestock that she never batted an eye when it came scampering to us. I wasn't keen on it getting too close in case it got stood on...my girl just stood like a statue when it started running up HER LEG! So I sort of took my stick and kind of scraped the ferret off her legs-- my girl's a star, but I'm not sure either one of us would take too kindly to a ferret running up us! So it backed off and I reined back a bit to get away so it wouldn't get stood on. My friend was about to move off when the ferret decided that her pony was maybe an easier target - however her pony started to dance about when it got as high as his knee - and the wee bugger BIT the pony! THe pony started stamping like he was going to kill the ferret, but they both managed to escape unscathed (well, sort of). The ferret sort of went back to his hutch and watched as we manouvered out the gate.

I've called the SSPCA to report an abandoned animal. Someone has since told me that it could have been someone was using it rabbitting. But I honestly can't see dumping a hutch out there, on it's side like that is the way to rabbit hunt? And it wasn't near a field or anything? Am I just being stupid?

PS, if that whole episode didn't just make my horse the best horse in the world, than I don't know what does.... <sigh>

Meanwhile, the pony that got bitten didn't seem to have any open skin, but his legs got a good thorough check and then scrubbed with hibiscrub for good measure.

 

[ForeverBroke_]

How bizarre!
Is the ferret still there do you reckon?

 

[PucciNPoni]

Well, I reckon it will be there. S/he seemed rather content to sort of hang about the hutch - so it must be used to it and it's own scent. It kind of darted in and out of the bushes and then back to the hutch, so I'm hoping that it's picked up and found by the SSPCA. They were supposed to phone me so I could direct them to the location. However, theyr'e probably thinking it's a prank call. Imagine getting a call on a Satuday eve, "Yeah, I found an abandoned ferret, it attacked my horse, but I can't tell you the address exactly cos I found it on a road with no name - and I'm not even sure I could tell you how to get there by car as I only travel that road by horse and access it by tracks, but I'm sure I could help you find it...."

 

[CorvusCorax]

Maybe it got laid up in a hole and the owner left its' box there.
When mine did this (it means they have caught the rabbit as opposed to flushing it, they will usually lie with it, eat it and then have a good snooze) I left his box beside the hole he went in, tried to block any others I could see, and in the morning he would be curled up asleep in his box.

Still a very odd experience! Do you know of any gamekeepers, hunters, roughshooters in the area who you could ask that might know the owner?

 

[PucciNPoni]

Wow, I never realised that someone would do that! Thanks for the information. I feel bad if I've reported someone for abandoning their animal -but that's to me what it had looked like. To my un-initiated eye, it seemed like a hungry animal that was desperate for human companionship (I don't know much about ferrets). It also looked *really* thin. But again, I don't much about these animals so don't know whether they are meant to look bony? I will ask around anyway, to see if anyone knows of the owner. I may take a drive to see if the hutch is still there.

I was actually thinking too that I was really glad I didn't have my wee doglet with me. My old girl weighs 3kg, has hardly any teeth, deaf, and arthritic. Not sure she'd be able to fend off a ferret!

 

[muddy boots]

Wow - what a good horse. I'm sure the pony will be OK - you seem to have done all the right things. My horse would have gone mental!
I hope the ferret is OK too - you're a good person to try to see to its welfare after the "attack".

I agree that someone may be coming back for it - but would really expect a small box, not a hutch. If the ferret is thin its possibly abandonned, as they can't usually survive in the wild (so I've been told)

 

[Fantasy_World]

It does sound weird to have been abandoned like that. The fact that the box sounds more like a hutch than ferreting box makes me think it has been abandoned. Like Hacking Hack said ferrets do remain in burrow if the rabbit lies up. This can be for a number of reasons. Rabbit standing its ground against the ferret and ferret remains latched on. Rabbit refusing to bolt, or a number of rabbits laid up in a burrow and can't escape due to where the ferret is. Or finally the ferret has killed the rabbit and has either remained with the kill or started to eat it.
Owners do sometimes leave their ferrets at the hole. Most should have a locator and collar though ( I did for mine) and dig both the ferrets and rabbits out of the burrows. However if people don't have collars on them or the warren is too hard to dig due to rock solid ground, tree roots or too much scrub then they will leave them to pick up later. I have heard of people leaving their box near the hole as ferrets like their usual places to sleep and when they are not down a hole or scratching inside their box, they are usually curled up asleep in it.
Or sometimes owners will block up the holes and return later to dig out the ferret if they had forgotten their equipment.
This doesn't sound like this is the case with this ferret though. Ferret boxes are usually quite small, depending on how many ferrets they carry. Mine is a larger type and is about 2ft. If this hutch style box was bigger than that then I would say it was a hutch. They also usually have a carry strap attached as well as there is usually enough to carry as it is, without the box.
I do hope they take you seriously though and I would chase them up on it, because if this ferret has been abandoned then besides the chances of it starving to death there are other health implications if this is an unspayed jill!
I don't think the ferret was being nasty btw. They are naturally very friendly creatures and the biting was most probably due to instinct since the pony scared the animal by its actions and if it couldn't flee then the next response would be to bite.
They have a natural inclination to try and climb up objects and the pony's leg would have seemed an ideal target as I know mine try to climb my legs given the chance lol.
Hope the little blighter gets rescued or reclaimed

 

[PucciNPoni]

Okay, the update!

I had hung around and hung around last night hoping to hear from SSPCA. I phoned them back a few times, and while I was waiting, I went to my house, and made up a map (it's an unnamed farm track) on how to find the ferret for the investigator guy. He phoned me after 9 last night and said that he couldn't come out -- he was too busy. But he'd be in touch in the morning. So around 10 am this morning the SSPCA called....but by this time in my impatience I spoke to the YM who told me that her hubby wanted to go and collect it as he used to keep ferrets! This was about 8.30 this morning and I felt a bit better that someone that at least knows how to handle ferrets could help me (I'm actually a wee bit afraid of these critters).

So I told them exactly where they could find the hutch (and it was big, standing on it's end it was about four foot high, so plenty big to think it wasn't a "wee box"). If it wasn't in an area where fly tippers frequent, I'm not sure what I'd have thought, but to me, it was dumped....and the ferret was skinny and no, definitely not nasty - but came running as if it was relieved to see people. It wasn't interested in the horse, it was coming for me cos I was speaking to it. When I backed it off, my friend was talking and it came to her voice...so when it did bite her pony, I was sure it was out of fear (and I was scared he was going to get squashed!)

So by the time my YM got to the place where I'd seen it, the hutch was gone. So either someone stole the hutch, or the owner came and collected his wee ferrity friend. I couldn't say for sure, but I'm really hoping it's the latter.

 

[Ranyhyn]

Ah hopefully a nice ending, I loved having ferrets, mind you I have to say if it were my weasels in their hutch they'd stay because they were fierce little creatures and it was all i could do to catch and hold the blighters without getting bitten (hunting stock, I was too young to know how to train them either lol)

 

[CorvusCorax]

[ QUOTE ]
I have heard of people leaving their box near the hole as ferrets like their usual places to sleep and when they are not down a hole or scratching inside their box, they are usually curled up asleep in it.

[/ QUOTE ]

SO, I thought that was an old wives tale and that I had lost my Boris for good the first time he ever stayed down a hole. He did it three more times and each time he was in his box the next morning!
This was about ten years ago and it was me and my ex working them, not a notion about locators and we weren't about to start digging my ex's aunty's farm up

Thanks for the update P&P, hope everything worked out OK for the wee fella.

 

[Fantasy_World]

My friend has told me about the story about boxes and I would certainly believe it to be true because most times I have seen them in their boxes they are either scratching away or fast asleep. I also believe the ferret that had been dumped was using the hutch in the same way. The reason I say that is because 2 years ago one of my ferrets ( who has since died last year due to old age), was a lovely little minx. If he could get out of his hutch he would lol. As he was an entire hob I couldn't keep him in the run with the jills for obvious reasons so he had always lived a life alone, except when he did produce two litters. So he spent his life living in one of the sections of the internal run that was blocked off and later lived outside in a sizeable hutch. Anyway twice he had managed to get out during that time. The first time I heard his duh-duh-duh noise they make when scuttling around excited, as I had awoke to nip to the loo and I found him, inside a black bin bag that was full of weeds etc for the tip. He had managed to squeeze through a gap at the top. On the hutch don't ask me how but he had swivelled one of the catches around so that the door could open. I tightened it back up and he didn't get out of that hutch again.
He got out of another one though, similar reason I think, about 2 years later. I went outside to feed him and found the hutch door open and he was fast asleep in his bed, looking very mucky ( he was an albino) and he had soil under his claws. First place I thought of was my compost bin at the bottom of the garden. Sure enough the bottom door had been lifted out and there was compost everywhere complete with claw marks. The little beggar had got out during the night. Mooched around. Had a dig in the compost and then scootled off back to bed lol.
This does make me believe that they do like their beds and are certainly one of the most intelligent pets I have ever had.
Anyway, thanks for the update PuccinPoni and I hope the little mite has found his/her way back to home or else someone has come along and rehomed it. Either way it is better than where it was

 

[CorvusCorax]

Haha - this post has made me realise how much I miss keeping ferrets!