Ferret Report on Groundhog Day

Chin Soon Is Too Smart For Her Own Good

As I've written before, little Miss Chin Soon, my smallest ferret, clearly studied escapology and getting through unlikely tight places from Romana while the two were together. I've had to reconfigure the barrier to my kitchen and all it's hazards several times now. It never takes long for Chin Soon to figure out another way to defeat it. I'm back to the Cincinnati obstacle course style of barrier: Plexiglas with something too big and heavy for Chin Soon to move behind it.
When Chin Soon gets where she's not supposed to be it's time to play two of her favorite games: chase and hide and seek. If I don't chase her she'll come out and look up at me like I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do. If she goes into some tight place she'll poke her head out if I don't seek and try to grab her quickly enough. Tenchi used to do just the same. I really think Chin Soon wants into the forbidden zones just to play these games. The fact that she's tiny and very fast doesn't make catching her all that easy.

Nyssa Is Channeling Pertwee

Pertwee, my all time most medically challenged weasel, had chronic pancreatitis the last couple of years of his life. We had to give him pancreatic enzyme (Viokase-V, very expensive) in powdered form mixed into food so that he could digest what he ate. Pertwee loved Bob Church's Chicken Gravy and he pratically lived on the stuff later in life. He had a funny habit, though. The spoiled weasel would ignore a bowl of gravy if you set it in front of him. Spoon feed him and he'd go nuts, lick the spoon clean at breakneck speed, and then dive into the bowl and not stop until it was licked clean too. Guess what Nyssa is now doing?

Yep, Nyssa has decided that the gravy is the greatest treat in the world. Even though she hates her medicine she'll wake up and will stand up at the side of the cage waiting for medicine time at the appointed hour. Medicine, you see, is always followed by yummy gravy and lots of it. Like Pertwee, though, you have to start spoon feeding her. Like I've said before she's spoiled rotten.
Much as was the case with Pertwee I am convinced the gravy is a big part of what keeps Nyssa going and alive at this point in her life. She's so terribly skinny it's pathetic but this high protein, high calorie food gets lots of nutrition into her.

Mama Ella

Whenever a ferret was under the weather little Romana would check on them. Sometimes she'd curl up with them, wide awake but keeping the sleeping sick one company. She did that with Podo and Ayeka and before Romana died she did that with Nyssa as well. Ella, who is now very closely bonded to Nyssa, has taken over that role. If Nyssa is curled up in a blanket sleeping during playtime Ella will periodically check on her and sometimes snuggle up with her. Ella and Nyssa are often snuggled together in the cage as well. Poor Zephyr, who still doesn't care for Nyssa much, is sometimes odd ferret out when the other three sleep together. At that point she'll often decide to tolerate Nyssa after all.
Anyway, it's very cute to see how social domestic ferrets can be and how they care for one another.

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