Ferret proofing your home

It is important to spend some time considering your home from a ferrets point of view. You must block access to behind cookers, freezers, fridges etc, anywhere where they may become trapped. Always check they haven't curled up to sleep in your tumble dryer, washing machine etc before you turn them on.

Put child locks or bolts on cupboards you don't want them to get into. My ferrets stole all my potatoes one by one and even came back for the bag. Eric also emptied all my CDs out of a cupboard just in case there was something interesting underneath.

Keep all drawers shut as they will climb in to explore and don't shut/move any half open drawer before you know where your ferrets are. Polie made a nest in my underwear drawer, it wouldn't have been too bad if she hadn't taken her food stash with her.

Keep items like bath sponges, washing up sponges, curlers, spongy/soft rubber dog or cat balls, ear plugs, foamy insoles, erasers, elastic bands etc well out of ferret reach. Ferrets have chewed on and swallowed chunks of these and similar items and suffered intestinal blockages. This is life threatening without immediate veterinarian attention.

Ferrets will stash items they take a shine to. It's a good idea to locate all these stashes and check them regularly for things they should not have and food that might be going off. Polie only collects blue items, Eric prefers socks, underwear and cuddly toys.

Always, always keep your loo seat and lid down. My friend came home to an exhausted bedraggled ferret clinging by the tip of its claws to the bowl rim and she was quite certain it would have drowned if she had been any later.

The ferrets like to sleep in my desk drawer when I'm working

We take our shoes off and wear soft slippers when we come in as ferrets have a tendency to run between your feet, and its easy to kick them or tread on them when wearing footwear.

Ferrets are excellent climbers, especially young ones. Polie can scale furniture Jackie Chan style, sort of squirming up the gap between walls and furniture. She easily scales the wardrobe this way, no problem. Getting down is a controlled slide. She is not allowed unaccompanied access to the kitchen as she can get on top of the stove. If we move it away from the wall she just uses the little holes in the back to scale it.

I have been told that ferrets have also been trapped in the mechanism of reclining chairs and squashed and we got rid of a rocking chair for obvious reasons.

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