A young man wrote to me and asked me to help him rehome a ferret he found.  The ferret was a young jill who he found wandering on the road, he took her in and she attacked the family rabbit and she was also nippy.  I approached a few people who never got back to me and then I thought this jill is not going to find a good home if she bites and then my way of thinking is that if she ended up in a bad home, it would be my fault for not taking her.  So I got really upset, it was a stressful and sad time for me anyway so I said I would take her.  One worry taken away at least.   We got her on the 25th of March 2007 and then she quickly started coming into season so she had a jill jab a week later.  She bites a little, I hope it's hormonal and if not then it's just plain bad behaviour and I hope it'll stop soon.  I handle her a lot and stroke her, play with her and hand feed her.  The hand feeding bit worked so well with Kobi and bonding with him.  I called the girl Honey and she eats anything.  She was on cheap cat food, supermarkets own brand, I wonder how cats survive on this...  She luckily ate the 2 dry foods that I feed and then she had a chick one night which wasn't enough so then she had 2 chicks for a night, greedy little thing.  She loves the mince I feed and also chicken chunks.  At the moment I have stopped giving her kibble to give her system a rest from the carbohydrates since she got too many of those before she came here.  Anyway, Honey is lovely.  She looks like a mix of Willow, Rose and Gremlin...  It was just so spooky how well she fit in here.  She arrived and walked around like she already knew our place.  I tried her with Spike and they immediately got on, Spike is a softie anyway and is very nice to other ferrets.  Spike lives with Leo and Piper and since Leo and Piper are so hyper and clever and destructive, they're not allowed in the kitchen or utility room.  I found Piper on the fridge freezer one day, almost 7 feet up!  Plus there are just some not very ferret proof places that they can get in and on.  But Spike loves the kitchen and utility so in the evening he has 30-45 minutes by himself where he can go anywhere in the house and recently also out in the garden.  So Honey shares this time with him.  Spike is a bit dodgy and I almost fear the insulinoma is coming back because he has some little funny turns at times.  So I want him to have as much fun as possible and he loves being out with Honey and the both of them go in the garden.  I have to be careful with Honey because she can get through the mesh we put on the fence so I have to follow her around but most of the time she's happy following the dogs and skunks and Spike.  :-)  I must film this, I throw balls for Poppy and Honey just keeps following Poppy and runs and runs.  Or she stalks the skunks, she also loves to tease the dogs and just keeps creeping up on them and then they run away so she can follow them or the dogs stamp their front feet like the skunks and that is such fun that Honey just starts dancing.  :-)  She really is a special girl.  I feel so happy that I am blessed with all the animals and it is so amazing how well they all get on, I just wish it was less work and that I had more time to enjoy them.  But this half hour at night when I'm out with Spike and Honey and the dogs and skunks, that is a very special time.  Oh, and Honey used her toilet from the beginning.  That is one thing with taking on rescues, the mess they make because they don't know the concept of a toilet.  But when we fetched Honey, I had my travel cage which has a litter pan in it and she used it straight away.  Then she had 1 accident in her cage so I wiped it up and put it in her toilet and she's been using her toilet since.  There were a few tiny accidents but all in all she is very clean.

Honey

Honey with Spike

 

I've been letting Spike out with Honey almost from when she arrived. Most nights they were even allowed out into the garden but I had to supervise Honey because she could fit through the fence mesh. On 11 April 2007 she almost killed herself... I let Spike and Honey out in the garden and Stripey, the dogs and skunks joined us.  I was talking to my dad on the phone while keeping and eye on Spike and especially Honey.  Our heating oil tank is in a corner in the garden, there’s the neighbours wall on one side and our garden shed on the other and Pete put a pallet in front of the oil tank to block it off.  The pallet only has very small gaps between the pieces of wood and I thought there was *no way* anybody could possibly get their heads through.  Except for Honey...  I saw how she stuck her head through and immediately started struggling.  I just said to my dad that I had to phone him back, rushed to Honey and held her still so she wouldn’t make things worse through struggling.  I yelled for Pete who then tried to figure out what to do.  Luckily he had an electric saw, one of many, got an electric extension lead and plugged everything in, luckily it was all in the garage and luckily he found everything quickly so he got the saw going and cut through one of the pieces of wood of the pallet and Honey could get her head out... I was so shaken, I mean I heard her gurgle and struggle to breath, I saw how she went limp and really thought that’s it, I’m watching her suffocate.  She was okay after the incident, just continued to run around and play like nothing happened...  At least this has made Pete want to finally ferret and skunk proof the garden and put mesh all along the fence and underneath the lawn so they can't dig out by the fence... And then he can open the bit by the oil tank up...

This is where Honey got her head stuck, you can see the cut on the lower left side:

Honey was spayed on the 7th of June and all went well.  She is still biting me though, she's got a lot better but will sometimes really lay into me.  I also can't wrestle with her with my hands because she plays very rough. Yet she was sooogentle with Spike and mothered him, obviously knowing he was very sick.  And she is also very gentle with Ruby. Yet a little horror with the skunks or dogs (got to keep them separate) and nippy towards me.