foot biting

Question
QUESTION: I let my ferrets out to play and my boyfriend put his foot down on to the floor (he had socks on) and my ferret potto bit him really hard and latched and wouldnt let go I scuffed him and put him back in his cage. this isnt the first time he bit my boyfriend what do you think i shout do??  please help

ANSWER: Hello, thanks for your question! LOL sorry you had to learn about this with your boyfriend being the victim, but it is not uncommon for ferrets to have EXTREME Foot Fetishes. And especially if the feet have socks on, it really seems to attract them and they will play rough and even bite kind of hard (I don't think they intend to bite YOU on PURPOSE).

I think the reason your ferret bit him hard on the foot is because he had the socks on: if he were bare-footed, your ferret should have realized that the foot was a human foot that belongs to one of you, and he should have known better than to bite skin (I'm assuming you have a tame, adult ferret that is no longer a nippy kit). So I think the sock simply tricked him; maybe he thought it was a fun, squishy toy, or a small animal to bounce on.

So don't worry about it too much, my ferrets do the exact same thing with me; when I am barefooted around the house they don't really bother my feet---but when I put socks on all of a sudden my feet are subject to their teeth. (I've grown accustomed to letting them play with my socked-feet, however, once in a while they do bite too hard in which I scruff them or say "NO" and restart the play...they seem to learn quickly that the feet are mine and I can still feel their bites through the sock, although it may take a few times for them to get it)

So please know that to a ferret a socked foot is different than a bare foot...he can't always correlate the two :)

I'm sure with enough patience and training you could get him to lay off on the sock biting, but I personally think it would be easier to just take socks off when home if you don't feel like playing footsies with the ferret.

Hope I've helped ease your worry, good luck! :)

~sheila

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: is it different if there Kits?? because thats what he is hes only like 7 months

Answer
Hello again...well yes there is a difference if he's more of a baby, because kits are teething which is pretty  painful for them, so they tend to chew and bite on things more often than adults do simply for that reason. I don't personally consider ferrets to be all "grow-ed up" until they hit about a year, so it's possible he is still teething/mouthing things and is just in general kind of hyper and nippy. You should be handling him as much as possible, he will soon learn hands (and feet) are not for biting. I think the more a ferret is handled the more tame they will become.

But again, the previous answer I gave probably does still play into it. My 5 year old girl still loves to "attack" my socked feet! So I think ferrets never really grow out of their obsession with feet, although all ferrets should know how to properly "play nice" with us humans since we don't have fur to protect us from their sharp little teeth.

Hope I've answered your question, just be patient with him, he sounds like a great little guy! :)

~sheila