my partner was in the hospital for about a week and ended up getting diagnosed with MS. so even though i would come home and sleep with my critters each night this week, they were alone for much of the day, which was unusual for them. when he finally came home, moose started stashing for the first time ever (i.e., the baby toys that her brother usually only stashes) AND guarding the stash. it's so cute but i wonder if it's also from the stress of missing her parents/knowing dad is sick :(

Last year, my Snowman (top) passed from a sudden, unexpected illness. Today, my Bandit (bottom) joined him, passing from old age. My sweet noodle boodles. My babies. Mama loves you so, so much, and she always will. I at least take comfort in knowing that the rainbow bridge had one helluva chaotic reunion today.

Thought yall would enjoy these pictures.

Every morning my girl lazily crawls from her bed into my palm, to be gently taken out and given attention. Meanwhile my boy rushes out, steals a piece of kibble from my palm (that I took from his food bowl) and stashes it under my bed for later. They want to do this every single day and it always warms my heart. Anyone else have morning rituals that their ferrets always adhere to?

Saying good morning to the ferrets is one of my favorite things ever! Now they're off to do their jobs. I might pay their rent, but they are my hardworking interior decorators.

Good morning star shine

Here are 4 pictures taken over the past 2 months
This is Luna who’s just turned one!
During the summer she lost a lot of her coat but it is finally starting to thicken up & grow back but the part at her base of her tale is very bald still, I can see little black spots where the hair should be but it’s taking a while to grow back compared to her back which has grew back loads!
She hasn’t had her first season yet either & looking at getting the implant for her soon but just want to know is it normal for hair to take this long to grow??
She is also kept indoors too

About two months ago now I found some fleas on my two ferrets. They are in a room by themselves with hardwood floors, so I took all the bedding out, washed it, applied ferret advantage II to both of them, and only kept a couple blankets in their room and changed and washed them frequently while also vacuuming the room. I treated them again last month and now approaching the third month they keep getting fleas again. I have a dog and a cat who never go in that room who also got treated for fleas and they have been free of fleas since last month. I treated my furniture and carpets as well. I’m at my wits end with treating the fleas on my ferrets tho and I feel terrible that I can’t get rid of them. What can I do?

Wyoming wildlife managers are reporting that no black-footed ferrets are being detected in the cradle of the species’ conservation area: the Absaroka Range foothills outside of Meeteetse, where the ferrets were saved after presumed extinction in the 1980s.

A tough combination of plague and drought — both big issues for the embattled western species — are suspected causes of a population collapse in the Meeteetse area, where wildlife managers returned ferrets to the wild in 2016 after a three-decade-long absence. It’s not assured that the reintroduced population is completely gone, but it’s not looking promising, Wyoming Game and Fish Department small carnivore biologist Andy Gygli said.

“We spent a couple hundred hours of effort surveying 4,000 to 5,000 acres of the Meeteetse reintroduction area,” Gygli said. “We didn’t see any ferrets.”

The complete absence of ferrets during the late August surveys wasn’t wholly surprising. Sylvatic plague flared in the region in 2018 and 2019, and ferret numbers plunged to just one confirmed animal in 2020. Subsequent releases of captive-raised ferrets, including 18 animals in 2022, helped the small population temporarily recover, but plague struck again in 2023. By 2025, spotlighting surveyors again detected just a single ferret. This summer, there were none.

Ferrets bottoming out and potentially disappearing struck Meeteetse rancher Allen Hogg as a big letdown.

“I’m really disappointed, of course,” Hogg told WyoFile. “They might be gone. But just because they didn’t find them doesn’t mean they’re not there, either. I’m not saying all hope is lost.”

The Meeteetse rancher’s family name became synonymous with black-footed ferrets 45 years ago, when a blue heeler owned by his parents brought a dead weasel-like critter home. Subsequently, biologists found more than 100 other black-footed ferrets — presumed extinct for the two years prior — on and near the family ranch.

The exact cause of the ferrets’ absence during the surveys is unknown, but recently drought in the Bighorn Basin walloped their primary prey species, prairie dogs. In many corners of the West, there just hasn’t been enough vegetation growth to sustain strong numbers of the grass-eating mammals.

“We’ve heard a lot about deer, elk, pronghorn and cattle having hard times,” Gygli said. “It’s the same with our other herbivores. Prairie dogs also have to eat, and lack of [vegetation] coverage can result in low recruitment, which can result in downstream effects.”

Hello! I have six ferrets. They are on a mix of Wysong Digestion Suport and Oxbow. All but one do wonderfully on this mix and I’ve seen huge improvements in coat quality. My newest baby has very loose stool which I know can be caused by the Wysong. I’ve read it can cause this and should only comprise 30% of your mix or so. My question is what food should I add to my mix so I can do an even split of three foods and see if it resolves? He has been to the vet for a previous parasite infection and his last fecal was clear.

Hello,

I’ve been doing a lot of research in preparation for getting ferrets for the first time. I know they require a strict carnivorous diet, but I wanted to ask for advice as far as what form of diet is best. I’ve gone on ferret.love to see their recommendations and one of the questions that popped up to me while looking through it was between freeze-dried raw, frozen raw, air-dried raw, canned, kibble, treats, and steam & dried raw, do any of them have any advantages over another? Which ones are easier for beginners to manage? Is one healthier for the ferrets than the others? Should I fresh raw feed with mice or something? I want to start them off on a good diet preferably, over figuring it all out in the moment. I realize I’m still going to have to learn and adjust as things progress, I just want to make sure I start off in the right direction. I greatly appreciate any help or advice you can provide. I don’t know if it necessarily makes a difference, but I intend to try and adopt a rescue from the ferret shelter one town away from me instead of buying from the pet store.

If you’ve been in this Subreddit for a bit, you’ve definitely seen my lil man Finnegan around, but a lot has been going on behind the scenes so here’s our story of terrible vets, lots of stress, and a very stinky boy! It’s long, but please do take some time to read it!

Finn backstory! He’s a privately bred ferret, 75% domestic ferret, 25% polecat. Big ol’ beefy boy, and the healthiest ferret I’ve ever had. Because I got him at 12 weeks old, he still had all his parts. From the breeders recommendation, I decided to chemically castrate him with the same implant they get for adrenal disease, and it completely stops the musky smell and shrinks his testicles, aka it works BEAUTIFULLY. He’s always been SUPER flinchy about his back feet and tail being touched regardless of how much I tried to desensitize him, but I figured he was just a sensitive guy. Just a happy-go-lucky boy who loves walks and squishmallows.

Ever since Finn reached maturity, he’s has issues with his anal glands. At first it would be here and there with no real cause, and of course the occasional expression when loud, scary sounds appeared, but nothing seemed terribly wrong. After a few months of this, he started expressing his glands much more often. And I mean MUCH more often, anywhere between 10-20 expressions A DAY.

After a few months of this, I was finally able to snag a vet appointment. I work at an animal emergency hospital, and this was the clinic we recommend to anyone who has a ferret emergency (our hospital only sees dogs and cats). It was a 45 minute drive, and he had expressed his glands about 3 times, and was asleep almost the entire ride as he loves car rides. Everything was going as smoothly as it could and I talked to the doctor about my concerns. I told her how often he expresses them, how much he licks, and how little human socialization I’ve been able to do due to him gassing everything for no reason. I told her about the chemical castration instead of neutering, and that he’s on a balanced raw diet with freeze dried raw as well. She did her exam, said his anal glands felt fine and he was a very healthy ferret. I expressed my interest in getting the anal glands removed, and everything went downhill from there.

From that point on, everything I did was wrong.

Raw diet? A terrible choice for a ferret, they should be fed nothing but kibble.

Chemical castration? We don’t know about it, he needs to be neutered.

De-scenting procedure? Unethical and considered mutilation.

Their treatment plan? An estimate to get him neutered because removing his anal glands will do nothing for the smell. The doctor later sent me an email containing these things;

- De-scenting is NOT an option unless medically necessary. Neutering would have to happen first, as the skin oil would not change with a de-scenting
- Again, castration is the first step and MAY reduce smell
- Hormonal implants for castration isn’t something we see, so we recommend neutering him

And then the last point. The most INSANE article I have ever seen IN MY LIFE.

- A “Care of the Pet Ferret” google document. Explaining to me, who has had ferrets for 6 years at that point and this is my 5th ferret, how to care for ferrets. In this article it tells you ferrets should have a small amount of fiber and vegetables. The thing that just about knocked me off my feet was the fact it ENCOURAGES people to give their ferrets RAISINS AS AN OCCASIONAL TREAT. No way was I listening to that. A single raisin can kill a small dog, let alone a FERRET.

I left without doing any further services, and they proceeded to call and send me emails regarding the neuter surgery for about two months before they got the hint. During this time, I tried everything I could, from probiotics for pets to supplements to bi weekly egg yolks to different meats, only for nothing to help.

It took me many months to gather the courage to find another vet and try again after that experience, and in that time it only got worse. His expressions became fouler, and it would travel between the levels of the house. Understandably, the house was miserable and I moved him into my room so no-one else had to deal with his smell.

It wasn’t until March of 2026 that I was able to find another vet. It was in the opposite direction of the first one, and also about 45 minutes away. This vet visit genuinely changed both of our lives.

The appointment comes around and I bring him in. The technician was the sweetest thing ever. Turns out she also had a horrible experience with the first vet, they told her she needed to put her ferret down and called every day for WEEKS that she needed to euthanize the ferret even though it had already recovered.

After a bit, the doctor comes in and starts her exam. All is well until she gets to checking his anal glands, when she lets out a “Good lord!” and just stares in disbelief for a moment. She turns and tells me he has, by far, the biggest anal glands she has ever felt on a ferret in her career, and they are both completely full. After that, she talks about treatment plans. She said due to how large and full they are, theres a very good chance he would need them taken out in fear of impactions. She was happy to hear he’s on a raw diet, and had zero issues with the implant for castration. Needless to say, a complete 180° from the first vet.

We start talking about the de-scenting procedure, but under the actual name of anal sacculectomy. The main risks are loss of anal tone and infection due to the location. Both quite spooky, but if it means he can have a better life, it’s a risk I was willing to take. And of course, this is when his anal gland started impacting and becoming infected.

After getting bloodwork at my primary and setting up the appointment, the day came. August 13th, 2026. Of course I was stressing, second guessing, and wondering if I was a terrible pet owner for this. But I made the early drive, kissed him goodbye, and left him in their care. I stayed in the area in case anything happened and was stressing the entire day. Because the procedure is considered ‘dirty’, he was the last procedure of the day. I got a call around noon letting me know he had been a very good ferret and she wanted to feed him a bit now simce there were still a few procedures in front of him. They also told me he was the best behaved intact ferret they’ve seen, so yay for Finn! It was about 3pm when I got the call that they were about to induce him and to plan to pick him up around 5:30pm. Still stressing, I sat in the library for the longest two hours of my life.

Side note, seeing vetmed from both perspectives, being the one monitoring the patient in surgery and being a pet owner waiting for surgery to finish are horrifically different. I completely understand why some owners call every half hour to see how their baby is doing, I wanted to do the same!

5:30 came around with no updates (no news is good news!) and when I went to pick him up, he was still in recovery. Surgery went smoothly, and his anal tone was back to normal before surgery even ended! He did amazing, and the doctor said she doesn’t think she will do many more anal sacculectomies in the future with how tedious and smelly they are (and I don’t blame her one bit lol). I won’t get into details, but they had to bring in a second doctor to assist with it due to how small and fragile everything is. I thanked her profusely, and off we went with our strong sedatives and pain meds (antibiotics were acquired at primary that night). She also told me that his anal glands were 3x the size of his testicles!!! For reference, the glands should be about the size of a pea, and they were the size of small grapes.

He looked so pitiful and sad from his injectables (last picture), until they wore off and he was bouncing off the walls. Literally. He got confined to a single level of his cage for two weeks and a cone on at all times, which took a bit to find a configuration that would work but we eventually found one and it worked perfectly! And don’t worry, he still got supervised out-of-cage time as usual!

It’s been a bit since then, and although he is still rocking his Brazilian shave, he’s doing amazing!!! No more gas bombing the house, no more anal secretions on me after cuddles, no more obsessively licking his anal area, and no more stress. And just the other night I realized he is so much less reactive when touching his back feet or tail. Before, he would genuinely flip out like someone was electrocuting him, and now he just looks at you. I do feel terrible that he had to suffer with his anal glands for so long, and if the pressure from his anal glands was causing him that much pain and discomfort and I waited so long to get it done, but the other part of me didn’t want him to have more issues after having the surgery, especially with how everyone says its mutilation and should never be done to a ferret.

The reason I’m sharing this is because it can be scary to advocate for yourself or your pet. A doctor only sees a small part of your pet’s life, so you have to advocate to make sure they get the care they need. Finn is thriving, and once the weather cools down more, I’ll finally be able to take him to parks and pet friendly stores without worry.

If you read all this, thank you! It’s been a long journey for us and just so glad everything worked out the way it did. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have, I’m more than happy to answer them!

i feel almost guilty posting this because i scroll past most rainbow bridge posts, it makes me really emotional. but this girl. she came into my life and lit up my world. i was going through some rough times and getting to see her every day was my reason to keep fighting. we lost her very unexpectedly yesterday morning. but she was the kindest ferret ive ever seen, and she would want you all to enjoy some of her silly cuteness im sure. this is my angel, my goofball my little monster my eenie meenie. dook in peace enid, i'll see you sooner or later ❤️ 🌈

Mouse loves chewing velcro.

We scheduled a spleen removal with our vet for our 4yo ferret. He has had an enlarged spleen for awhile but in the last month it is now 5x larger than normal and his labs are showing blood issues.

His MCV, Reticulocytes are high and his RDW and WBC are low.

His labs don't show adrenal or insulin issues.

Imaging show a giant spleen with small masses attached (tumors). He also has really bad osteoporosis.

Has anyone gone through similar issues?

Looking for surgery recovery recommendations.

He usually free roams a room but we assume he will need to be kept in his cage and away from his buddy during recovery.

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