Whatre the stuck ferret stories???? How to wiggly noddles like them even get stuck?!
So, the general rule with a ferret is that if their head can fit through a hole, the rest of them can too. This is the rule you keep in mind when you’re ferret-proofing, and it’s also a rule ferrets seem to REALLY believe in, even when the theory doesn’t quite match up with the reality. And sometimes not even their head can fit, but that doesn’t stop them from trying....
Basically, if a ferret decides a hole looks interesting, they will try to go in. They do not know the meaning of the word “consequence.”
Here’s my first ferret, Shango:
I got her in high school, and one summer my sister was home from college, and she agreed to babysit Shango while I took a shower. During that time, Shango went up the hole of a plastic light-up Santa lantern/figurine - the kind you’re supposed to put over a light bulb. And then - you guessed it - she couldn’t get back out. Luckily we were able to get her out without too much strife, but we still talk about the time Shango got stuck up Santa’s butt...
Here’s my second ferret, Oscar:
I got Oscar a few months after Shango. He was the same kind of troublemaker that Kit is - just smart enough to cause extra trouble, but not always smart enough to get himself out of it. He was also a baby when I got him, and his body grew faster than his brain. He was used to being able to fit in the holes behind the TV stand, which are meant for wires to pass through. But then he kept getting bigger and the hole didn’t, and one day he only fit halfway through the hole before getting stuck. -_- So there he was, wearing the entire TV stand as a belt and spinning around - literally twirling within the hole - and crying because he couldn’t get through. I managed to ease him out of the hole, and he did his part to squeeze his big butt through. Ferrets do this thing with their body that’s kind of like how a worm moves - it’s almost like their outer layers of skin move independently. So yeah, he got out, but he was not a happy ferret that day.
Osito was one of a group of three senior ferrets I adopted together from the GCFA in 2012. You might know him from this picture over on my primary blog:
Now THAT’s a hole he can comfortably fit through. But one day he decided to go into a hole in the back of a subwoofer. I guess he didn’t really get stuck, but I couldn’t get him out until he decided he wanted to come out. After that, the subwoofer was banished from the house.
And finally, if you follow me at my primary blog @bob-artist , you probably know Tux:
This one was almost exactly a year ago, and it was legitimately scary. I was doing our usual nightly ritual where I clean the cage and get the ferrets’ evening meal ready. I saw Tux happily war-dancing on the sofa as I was going between rooms to wash ferret dishes. Then, after ten minutes of cleaning and meal prep, I called the ferrets to the cage to get dinner. Usually, all three come running in a little pack, and they all climb into the cage together and then turn around and eagerly wait for me to give them their food. This time, Tux didn’t show up, which was strange because he’s an absolute fiend at mealtime. Nothing can keep him away from his food - or from Kit’s or Miss Rudy’s. XD
I kept calling, and he still didn’t come, so I put the other two away and started searching. I searched all over the house and then I searched outside in the dark a bit, on the off chance he could have gotten out while my dad had stopped by earlier that day. I looked under the sofa slipcovers, then I looked under the cushions. I carefully slid the sofa away from the wall - sometimes the ferrets sleep under it in an area I can’t see without moving the sofa - and I saw an odd spot of clear wetness on the floor, but no Tux. I thought maybe a ferret had spit up something earlier that day, and I made a note to check on it later.
At this point I knew something was very badly wrong. I spent about an hour looking with no luck, but I kept coming back to the sofa because it was the last place I’d seen him, and that spot of wetness was strange. I took out the seat cushions again, and this time I saw Tux’s butt - but only his butt. His head was stuck in between two metal slats in the frame behind/within the non-removable back cushions of the sofa. The wet spot on the floor was drool. His head was really badly wedged in the sofa frame, and I couldn’t get him out.
I might have panicked a little more than I should have, but I had no way of telling if he was hurt or dying or anything because I couldn’t see his head. I tried to maneuver him out of the hole, but he was stuck tight. It was a few minutes that felt like a few hours. Then, finally, I had one of those adrenaline-fueled moments where I turned into the Hulk and pulled the metal slats apart as hard as I could while simultaneously trying to blindly turn Tux’s head in a way that would give him more space. I probably only moved those slats about a millimeter or two apart (they were the solid, not-supposed-to-be-bendable type), but after I did that with one hand and shifted his head with the other, Tux was suddenly able to pull himself free, and he launched himself backwards off the sofa.
He shook his head a few times and sort of rubbed his ears, but he seemed okay. I checked him out to make sure nothing looked wrong, and then I delivered him to the cage where he absolutely gorged on the food he’d missed out on for over an hour. He didn’t show any signs of lasting injury. My shoulder hurt for a week after my Hulk moment, though. XD I still have no idea how he managed to wedge his dumb thick head so tightly between those unmovable slats.
So yeah. Ferrets, man. They think they can fit everywhere, and they do not care how many heart attacks they give you.