Welcome to the family, Orion.

[Kittensmew]

Today we ended up getting our newest addition to the little herd that we have going on. No, he isn’t another bunny, but a ferret. He is our sixth ferret. He is a little boy and only two months old. He now has three new sisters and two new brothers, instead of being all on his own. He also will now get out two-three hours every day instead of being stuck in the same little space all the time. He also has a two story cage that he shares with his new siblings now, and plenty of toys and cage items to entertain him. He is quite big for only two months old, and will probably end up being as big as our biggest one, if not, bigger. His name is Orion, after the constellation. Now we have Naomi, Bandit, Nylah, Toffee, Cricket, and Orion. I only got a few pictures, and only two were good enough to show. That being said, one is a little blurry. Not too bad, though. I only got a few because I didn’t want to keep him up all night trying to get the perfect picture.

In other news, my cat Candy is about to be turning five. Her birthday is August 1st, so three days away when I post this. I got her about 15 days after her first birthday, so I will have had her for four years in a few weeks.

Here is baby Orion.

[MoxieMeadows]

Aww how cute! Welcome Orion.

[Vienna Blue in France]

Hello and welcome ! Cutey face !
I bet the NIC cubes inventer didn’t think of bunny and ferret homes when s/he thought up the idea !!

[Azerane]

How cute! What a gorgeous new addition

[Hazel]

What a cutie! Wow, 6 ferrets, you must be an expert! We have a ferret too. Do you have any tips for litter training? Our boy just pees and poops all over the floor when he’s out. Inside his cage he uses the litter box perfectly. He’s 2 years old now though, so it’s probably too late to fix this… But we love him anyway!

Would love to see your other ferrets!

[Kittensmew]

We have a little trouble with getting ours to use the litter box as well. XD None of them are perfect, but every once and a while I’ll catch them using it. If your ferret has a specific corner that he likes to back into while outside of the cage, try placing a littler box there. Usually they’ll use the same corner and then end up using the box. Though, I have two who are very smart and simply push it out of the way. Both of them have taught all of the others except for Orion to push it out of the way, too. For the cage, we have that ferret nation one. We put fleece on the little shelves of them. Although they do use the litter box some, they eventually get some poop on the very bottom shelf of the cage. When it gets bad we simply throw out the fleece on the bottom and replace it with new fleece. Also most of the time they’ll use the box when it’s clean. Obviously with six ferrets I have to clean it quite a bit to keep it clean, but still. I find that it usually does help to keep it clean. Also if he mixes up where he pees or poops, just put multiple boxes down whenever you see him go. Try giving him a little treat when you catch him using the box. They usually eventually learn that when they use the box, they get something out of it. 

Here is our first and oldest. Her name is Naomi and she’s a little over a year now. These pictures were taken before we started putting fleece on the shelves.

This is Bandit. He is our second. He turned a year old last month. We were outside this day.

This is Toffee. She is our fourth ferret. She isn’t quite a year, but nearing it.

This is Nylah. She is our third ferret. Really close to a year.

This is Cricket. He is our fifth ferret. Not very close to a year, but still the biggest we have. Though I think the title of biggest might go to Orion later on. He looks a lot like Toffee, just a lot bigger. We can’t really ever get pictures of him unless he’s asleep. He’s still pretty young and energetic, so it’s hard to get good pictures while he’s awake.

[Kittensmew]

Little Orion has been having a little diarrhea. When I was cleaning it up earlier, it smelled really bad compared to their usual poop. (Not that their usual poop doesn’t smell. XD) Upon further inspection, I noticed some stringy looking things in his diarrhea. They weren’t worms. They weren’t moving at all or alive. I remembered that when we first got Cricket, he had been having diarrhea troubles as well. I then remembered seeing the exact same thing in Cricket’s poop before. We had taken Cricket to the vet and they gave us this yellow liquid (forgot the name) to give to him once a day for a week. All of the exotic vets around are closed tomorrow, so we’re going to call and make an appointment on Monday. When we had to take Cricket, they got us in the same day we called. So he’ll probably end up going to the vet on Monday. Luckily for us, it isn’t something that is contagious. When we got Cricket, none of the others ended up with what he had. I’ll give an update when he goes to the vet.

I have also began feeding him special food. (Which is just their normal food soaked in warm water for a few minutes.) It’s very easy to tell that he’s teething and you can even start to see his little teeth coming in. To make it a little easier on him to chew, I’m softening his food. All of the other little piggies think it’s the best thing ever and want some too.

[LittlePuffyTail]

He’s adorable!!!! As are all your little ferrets! Hope he is feeling better soon.

[Hazel]

Sounds like our boy is actually one of the smart ones, then! He used to push his litter box out of the way too, until I secured it with velcro. No, he doesn’t have a designated spot he likes to go in, he just goes wherever necessary to avoid the litter box. If I put it in his newest toilet spot, he just goes somewhere else.

All your ferrets are so cute! Naomi looks just like ours. Has she always been all white? Ours used to have beautiful silver markings, but after a while he turned completely white.

Good luck at the vet, I hope Orion will feel better soon!

[Kittensmew]

Ah. I can’t really offer any other advice then. I clean my box a few times a day and usually just wipe up the mess that they make in the cage. I have heard that if they poop outside of the box and you pick up their poop and place it in the box, they’ll be more likely to use it. Not sure how true this is as I have never tried it, but it sounds logical. Mine usually go where they mess previous poop, which is just outside of the box. Therefore, they always go there since they can smell the previous poop that was there.

When we first got Naomi she was completely white, a DEW. But then as she started to growl, she began to get the tiny bit of brown that she has now. She never really lost any colors, but gained new ones. Bandit used to be more white and black, but now he’s getting a tad bit of silver in the mix. I always joke around that Bandit is just a poor, helpless old man. Even though he’s younger than Naomi. XD

The vet that we took Cricket to has the exotic vet off on vacation. The back up that we had is doing emergency surgery. The one we had been going to said she’d be back in a week. So we’re going to take Orion to a different exotic vet. I had been wanting to try them out anyway, so here’s my chance I suppose. XD

[Odette]

Orion is adorable. I’ve always wanted a ferret. I hope he is feeling better. And, a very happy birthday to Candy.

[Kittensmew]

We just got home with the little guy from the vet. Great news- he had no parasites. They did give him some antibiotics to take for a few days just to see if that’ll help his system get back to normal. Even better news- I found a new vet that I actually trust with my little fuzzies. I just didn’t feel like the vet we had taken Cricket to knew a lot about ferrets. Sure what she did give us helped Cricket, but I felt like it was a lucky shot in the dark that she took. That being said, I’ll probably end up taking all of my exotics there if needed. Maybe even my cats and dogs. All of the staff were very friendly. They were a little busy, but it was only like a 10 minute wait before we got in. They seemed to know a lot more about ferrets than the other vet. The vet tech and the exotic vet were both very helpful and friendly. The cat and dog vet had taken a picture with a ferret three days ago, and it turned out that the ferret in that picture was Orion! I guess he went to go look at the ferrets. We got Orion exactly three days ago. They all seemed pretty amused that the ferret they had taken a picture with ended up in their office a few days later. It was a little bit pricey, but it was very much worth it. When I look for vets, I personally look at who knows that most about the animal rather than the price.They even flavored the medicine and came to see if he liked the flavor before just sending us off with it. They seemed ready to make a new batch if he didn’t like that particular flavor, too. I really liked them and will now be taking my ferrets to them. Orion gets a little bit of medicine once a day for five to seven days.

Thank you for the Birthday wishes to Candy, Odette. Yesterday for her birthday she got some new toys and got to munch on some grass from outside. But then this morning I woke up and found that she left me a hairball. I suppose she was giving me a thank you gift for her new toys. XD

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