Trials and tribulations

The other day I went in as usual at around 6 pm to do the daily litter clean up and "changing of the guard",in the ferret room. I try to keep the time the same every day during the week, because all of the kids can't be out and running together as will be seen later on down the line. 6 pm is a good time during the week, because I get up around about 5 am shower and all that and do the swap again about 6am. I like to try and keep the time out for one group equal to the other. The day time group consists of Nikki, Lil, Starlight, and Elliot. The overnight group is Ozzie and Sasha. Weekends are a little different since I like to sleep in. But it all works out.

This particular incident happened on the weekend in the evening. I went in as usual with Elliots medicine in hand. Did I mention that Elliot is hypo-glycemic? He gets 0.7 ml of pedia pred and 0.2 ml of diazoxide that is mixed into a tutti-frutti flavor, twice a day. I administered the meds, cleaned up the litter boxes and put the day group to bed. Giving out treats all around. They like the totally ferret treats currently. They used to love the 8 in 1 chicken ferretbites, but they changed the formula, so now none of my kids want them. I made sure all the doors on their house were latched tight, because Lil will squeeze through to get at Ozzie if she can.

So, that being done, I went and Let Ozzie and Sasha out to play. Ozzie is a bit of a biter, he doesn't try so much for me anymore, unless I am dumb enough to stick his nose right in front of mine. That big target is just too much to resist and he'll chomp away. Other than that, we get along fine. He won't come out of the house unless I reach in and pick him up and carry him out. Sasha used to come out on her own but has taken a cue from Ozzie and wants to be lifted too. That being done, we played for a bit. Then I went out for some constructive TV watching and Counter Strike playing. All was well at this point. At various points through the evening I usually go back in, say hi and make sure everyone is ok. I like my guys to have a lot of people contact. The last time in is what caused the problem. I opened the top door to the old guys house and said hello all around, I must have got distracted because I forgot to shut it again! Lil was asleep so it took her a while to find this. But later on when I was in bed, I was awoken by the telltale shrieking and screaming of an all out ferret brawl. For the most part these aren't too bad, but I like to break them up and discourage them when I can. It was funny in a way, because I had been thinking of trying mixing them together. I t had been a few months I thought, maybe they are used to the smell of each other. This proved that was a bad idea. As I entered the room, I saw Lil sitting in one end of the cloth tube, Ozzie was under the dresser. Sasha was sound asleep in their house. I grabbed Lil and deposited her in her place and shut the door. She smelled of musk, and her tail was bottle-brushed out straight! She was very worked up. I got Ozzie out from under the dresser and saw blood on the fur of his neck. His tail was also straight out. I will have to say right here, I blamed this on Lil right away, she is the Alpha female of the group and goes after Ozzie whenever she gets the chance. Turns out though, that the blood on Ozzie was from Lil. He savaged her left ear pretty good. After she calmed down, about an hour later, I cleaned her up and inspected her ear. It wasn't as bad as it looked. She would be fine.