July 99

09.07.99

I've had another rescue in. A local animal sanctuary phoned, they had a stray ferret in and were wondering if I could take it. I said yes and asked what it was, they said a hob. Yeah, right, I got there and it was a jill very much in season. Covered in ticks. Pale gums. She has no weight and is very thin around the shoulders and "hips". I took her immediately to my vets for a jill jab and sprayed her with Frontline at home. Most the ticks fell off within a few hours but only Sunday was she free of ticks. Saturday night I sprayed Frontline on my fingers and "rubbed" it on the ticks around her face- all the ticks have gone. She had them lined up along her ears... I'm not exaggerating but she had at least 50 ticks if not more. Most were very small, size of a needle head. But some were medium size, some were big, one was huge! I don't like ticks at all... But she's a nice natured jill, approx. 2 years old, looking very happy, I'm sure she knows that somebody is caring for her now and looking after her...

11.07.99

Been to the car boot sale with my neighbours Dominic and Lorna today, we wanted to do some ferret PR and raise funds for the rescues. We had 6 ferrets, some products (ferret food, flea spray and an oil for the coat and skin for all animals) from Companion's Choice and some signs with us, one sign "Stroke a ferret for 10p". And some other things for sale. I sold 2 aquariums and some books. I had all the CC things spread out but didn't sell any food, not even flea spray... There were some horrible people around but also some very nice ones, including a lady from B'ham. She saw us and talked to us and then asked me if I was the person who had adverts everywhere. I said I might be and that I'm WWFW. She said she'd cut out an advert out of the Freeads paper and showed me and said she was going to phone me and then she saw us there. A real coincidence. I gave her an NFWS leaflet. She'll phone me next week and visit as well. Plus a nice girl bought one of my aquariums and she got smitten by the ferrets and not much later her mum came and picked up some ferret information leaflets and said she was the mother of the girl who bought the aquarium. The girl was about 16 if not older and made a good impression. So the car boot sale was pretty good, the lady from B'ham is going to drop some things off for me that I can sell and use the money for the welfare. She was going to give the stuff to somebody else to sell but rather wants to support ferret welfare. So it looks like I'll be doing more car boot sales in the future.

12.07.99

Last Saturday a man phoned me, he had 9 ferrets and wanted to get rid of them. He was getting a divorce, wife threw him out and the animals had to go. He had to give his horses, dogs and then the ferrets away. I said I didn't have the room nor the funds to take so many but would try and find somewhere for them. I phoned 3 animal sanctuaries but they were all full. Then I had a "bright" idea, that I could take them to the RSPCA for him. So on the 12th he dropped the ferrets off at my neighbours who he had to visit anyway and I took them and drove 60 miles to the nearest RSPCA. But surprise, surprise, they wouldn't take them! "We're not licensed for small animals, we can only take dogs and cats." So there was I with 9 ferrets and didn't know where to take them. My father is staying at the moment, he's not keen on ferrets and does not understand why I have to rescue ferrets. "Why can't somebody else do it."... He just doesn't understand that ferrets are my life and that rescuing them and looking after them gives me a sense of doing something good and useful. So I drove to some neighbours who have and breed horses and asked them if they have an empty stable at the moment where I could keep them. Carol said that it might be a bit dangerous because they have a lot of horses but her brother Pete who lives almost right next to me has stables that are empty but they're not all secure, the ferrets could escape if they were loose so I'd need cages. I didn't even have cages. So Carol phoned another lady who keeps rabbits and she had a spare double wire cage that I could borrow. I was so amazed how helpful everybody is in a crisis. So I set up the ferrets' new temporary home- all behind my dad's back.

But when I first saw the ferrets, I was furious. They are all very thin and 5 of the jills were in season so before I even organised a home for them, I took them to the vets. Emily was there plus a vet student and one of the receptionists and Brenda and all were disgusted when they saw the jills. The vet student injected them with a jill jab and the jills threw a tantrum and 2 of the needles got bent and needed to be replaced before the vet student could carry on injecting... The 6th jill was just skin and bones, not in season, suffering from partial hair loss... One jill has a massive cyst, abscess or tumour at the tip of her tail... [Turned out to be a chordoma.] Makes me so angry how cruel some people are and I would like to report this man for cruelty...

The skinny jill is separated, she wouldn't even eat food anymore. I offered her kibble, tinned cat food and a mush made of ground ferret food and water. She ate the mush... She is starting to eat quite well so I hope she'll be better soon...

All the nails were overgrown as well as if they had never been cut. I cut them all today. Handling the 3 hobs is hard, they bite whenever they can... Yesterday I had one hob attached to my right hand and another hob attached to my left arm, it's scary... So cutting their nails was quite a job, they didn't even lick the oil of their tummies so I scruffed them and then tried my best to cut the nails with my other hand. The girls were easy, they licked oil of their tummies while I cut their claws.

13.07.99

Today I re-homed 2 rescues. A lady came because her 12 year old daughter wanted a ferret. They chose the jill I got in last Friday (09.07.99) and one of the new ones. The lady went ratty when I said that I charge 5.00 Pounds per ferret plus veterinary cost which would've been 10.00 Pounds per jill. The lady said that the man from Swansea Ferret Welfare had said that the welfares give all their ferrets away for free because they're happy to find homes. I explained to her that I can't do that, I don't have much money to live on and I can't afford to spend hundreds of Pounds on the rescues and give them away for free, I said any other ferret welfare would have to charge and the RSPCA aren't giving their animals away for free...

So the lady drove off in a huff- and came back 2 minutes later. She said she had a very disappointed little girl now so I said I'm sorry and that they can get some free ferrets from the Swansea welfare, the lady had said that the man is even willing to drive up with 2 ferrets for her. So I said she could get 2 ferrets off him or think about what I said, I was willing to let her have the 2 jills for 10.00 Pounds. So she said she'd think about it and drove off again. 2 minutes later she was back, the girl Becky knocked on the door again with a cheque made out for 10.00 Pounds and said she would take the 2 ferrets. She signed my adoption contract and said she'll take good care of them and phone me and let me know how they're getting on. She seemed a very nice girl who loves animals and especially ferrets. So that leaves me with 10.

The new rescues from yesterday is on the left and the rescue from last Friday is on the right:

The hobs are booked in for their castration in 3 days, if I didn't get them done I couldn't re-home them because you just can't handle them. But my idealistic view of getting all rescues neutered won't be possible now as the jills are all in season and I can't keep them for months to have them done and it would also get too expensive so all I can say is that the new owners will have to have them neutered...

Pictures of the new rescues and the skinny jill:

30.07.99

I re-homed one of the rescue hobs. I and my friend Lorna were helping Sheila and Ron from Bolton Ferret Welfare with the CLA Game Fair. There were also more NFWS members helping and one of them, Ingga, fell in love with one of the hobs. She and her husband Thorr had 2 of their ferrets with them so Ingga put the hob in with them to see whether they get on and they got on really well so Ingga adopted the hob. At least I know he's gone to a very good home.

1.08.99

Okay, so it's August but it belongs here. Well, 2 friends of Thorr and Ingga, Mike and Dave, wanted to adopt one of the rescue jills and chose one on the last day of the CLA before they went back home. Another good home found. That leaves me with another 5...