A Day in the Life of a Zookeeper

A Day in the Life of a Zookeeper
Ever wonder what its like to share your world with a bunch of crazy critters? Tune in to find out!

Thursday, December 05, 2013

The Challenges of a Tall Ferret

Theo is tall or long or whatever word you want to use to describe the fact that he can get to stuff the other ferrets can't.  I haven't done official measurements (believe it or not) but he is probably a good 3 inches taller than the girls and 2 inches taller than Clooney and Finn.  He can reach things I never really had to think about before. For instance:


  • The garbage can - if there is anything close by that he can move to give him even the tiniest boost he can get into the garbage.  He doesn't really do anything once he is in there but - it's stinky and icky and might have things that could be harmful to ferrets so we don't want him in there.  Needless to say - cans have either been elevated or replaced with ones with lids.
  • Toilets - this one is a multi faceted issue:
    • First - he is tall enough to reach you when you sit on the pot and he is not above a little love bite on the backside now and then - ouch.  Even better when its dark and you get up in the night to go pee....surprise!!
    • Second - he is fascinated with the flush and is tall enough to hang off the seat so he can see whats going on.
    • Third - he is tall enough to hoist himself up onto the toilet so whatever you have on the back of the toilet is fair game and often ends up on the floor.
    • Fourth - in the downstairs bathroom the toilet is a ferret step stool to the pedestal sink and like all ferrets, Theo likes to lick the soap.  So - now we have no bar soap down there - just the soap dispenser.
  • Chairs - they are fair game now.  The other ferrets are not tall enough to get on the chairs.  Theo can pull himself up and then he has access to whatever is close to the chair, be it the table or some other piece of furniture.  We got new counter height dining chairs which he can't get to - haha - we win!  :)
  • Jumping/leaping - dude can jump - a long way.  Example - he climbed up on the sofa and managed to leap to the seat of the counter height chairs which then gave him access to the table.  Remember when I said we win -- nevermind...
  • Your legs - if he stands on his back feet with his back legs fully extended he comes up to above my knee - if you have on shorts, pokey little ferret nails don't feel so great.  This is true with the other ferrets but they are more at shin level - for some reason my legs feel tougher on the shins.
The good news about this is that he is not really a bad boy - he doesn't chew things up, he is not destructive, he is just a curious little one.  Ferrets are notorious for pushing things off of tables so I try to keep the breakables where he can't access.  Long story short (no pun intended) I would make whatever changes are necessary because he has become such a sweet and loving little addition to our family - I adore him.

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