Behavioral Problems

Question
Hi, I have a 30 week old ferret His name is Zeke. I have had him since august.He lives in a big house with tons of attention. He runs around freely with no cage. He has only had a cold. I took him to the Vet for that. But lately he has been chewing on my fiance's shoes and I cannot stop him. I dont know any ideas to try to stop him. I also was wondering if you have any game ideas.

Answer
Hello Jessica and Zeke!

Do you mean that Zeke runs around the house or that he has a designated area to run around in? (If he just has a designated area, feel free to skip over this next part:) While I understand why it would seem that it would be great for a ferret to have free run over the house all the time, it actually is quite dangerous, in my opinion. If a ferret has free run of the house all the time, even with supervision, he is still in danger. There may be a part of the home that isn't quite ferret proofed enough or he may even be stepped on. I am not saying you are a bad ferret parent or that your home is not ferret proofed, I just simply mean that accidents do happen and some things do get overlooked so I would strongly advise ferret proofing an area that he is allowed to play in and have all his own!

This shoe situation is an extremely serious one. I'm afraid the only way to get him to stop is to keep shoes up and out of reach (and well out of reach) of little ferret paws. I once heard a story about a man that took great care of his little girl. He loved that ferret so much and she had her own room, the best food, the biggest cage. She had everything and she loved her "daddy" as much as he loved her. Unfortunately, she liked to steal his shoes. He thought it was a cute habit and didn't think anything of it and he didn't realize she was eating parts of the insoles of his shoes. As you can imagine, this built up in her system and caused a blockage and she passed away due to complications from that problem. Like I said, you really need to keep shoes out of his reach and I mean extremely far out of his reach. He shouldn't be able to get near a shoe.

As far as games go, ferrets like when their humans play "tag" with them. By tag I don't mean you running after him while standing! That could end badly. I would suggest getting down on your hands and knees and playing tag with him that way. You can also wrestle with him with your hand. I had somebody tell me about this game they played with their ferret in the water. Does Zeke like water? If he does, you can fill some cups with water in the bathtub and then put Zeke in and knowing ferrets, he will knock over the cups and run around and frolick and when he runs under the faucet, you can quickly flick the water on (remember, not too hot but not too cold). I would only suggest that game if he likes water, though. We have a big box that we filled with those plastic easter eggs that you can put candy in. Obviously, they don't have candy in them or anything but we just bought a bunch of those and put the halves in a box and cut holes in the box for our kids. We also put treats in there once in a while for them to find, checking to make sure they are eating them and switching out old treats for fresh ones, of course. Our kids love that!


I hope I helped you and if I didn't, please let me know! Good luck!

Sincerely,
Emilee Andrews