Why does my ferret bite me




















Did you get married, divorced, take a new job, or begin working longer hours? Did you introduce new pets to your home, or have a baby? Do you have children, and are they young or older? Has their been a change in their free time? Ferrets can be susceptible to stress, and may act out because of it. Any change, even for the better, is stressful for both humans and animals.

Bringing a new ferret into your home is a big adjustment for a small creature. Many times, once things have calmed down and the animal becomes more comfortable, problems will resolve themselves. This can result in all sorts of behavior problems — digging, scratching, throwing around food and water bowls or litter boxes, as well as biting.

Ferrets do not usually demonstrate the jealousy that a cat or dog can when a new pet or a new child enters the home, but they will certainly know if they are suddenly getting a lot less attention from their owner, for whatever reason. Ferrets can act badly for the same reason.

Behavioral studies show again and again that animals — and humans — would rather get negative attention than no attention at all. If the only time you interact with your ferret is when they do something bad, then you have just taught them that being bad gives them something they want and need. Reward good behavior, not bad. Ferrets and young children should always be carefully blended into your household.

Excitable, active children and an excitable, active animal can be a poor mix. There are quiet, calm children who are great with animals. Parents should be very, very sure their child is capable of handling a small, fragile pet like a ferret. The child must be taught how to play with the animal, and not to poke fingers at them or into their cage.

Older children and teens have other issues. They may develop a strong interest in sports or other extracurricular activity, get after-school jobs, or even leave for college. A neglected animal is an unhappy one. Can you blame them if they try to get attention and affection any way they can?

A very common reason ferrets bite is because they are caged for too many hours. These are intelligent, active animals designed by nature and bred by humans to investigate, seek, and hunt. But, the difference is how hard it bites. You will feel light pressure and that is all. What you can do is lower the biting intensity.

During our playtime, Yoda always grabs my fingers. Besides their communication, there can be other reasons for ferret biting. Most of them are connected to their health and socialization. Socialization in ferrets is a time they spend with their mother, their siblings, and the ferret owner before the ferret goes to the new owner. In that period a ferret should learn how to bite, when to bite and when not to bite.

That transformation can make any carnivore nervous, including ferrets. Their mouth itch and the only release they have is biting. If you are one of the few things around a baby ferret to bite, you will be the release. It can lead to blockage which is very dangerous for ferrets.

Another socialization-related source of ferret biting can be negligence. There is also a possibility that your ferret starts biting the cage because he wants out! So, make sure your ferret spends at least one hour or two in the morning and an hour or two in the evening outside of the cage.

How can you grab a ferret if he is biting? This is a vicious circle and you are the one to break it. You can start with baby steps. When your ferret is sleeping , slowly start petting the ferret.

After a few days, try to pick up a sleepy ferret, place it in your lap and pet him. Gradually change your interaction from when he is sleeping to when he is awake. If you have a socialized ferret and he started to bite, it can be a health-related problem.

If your ferret bites you when you touch a certain part of his body then it might be some health-related problem. Go to the vet so you can find out what is the problem and deal with the injury. If you adopt an adult ferret , the ferret can start biting. That can be because a change in environment makes him nervous or he was saved from an abusive owner.

It is never too late to train your ferret not to bite. But, the best period when a ferret should learn not to bite is when he is young. When a baby ferret is biting too hard, his mother hisses or scruffs and corrects that bad behavior.

Mother and siblings are responsible for interaction between ferrets and during playtime, the owner is responsible for human interaction. During that period, a ferret owner comes into the picture so a baby ferret can get used to human hands, petting, and carrying around. That is why it is very important for a kit to stay with its mother for at least 3 months, even more.

When a ferret is an adult, he has experienced all those situations at least once in his life and he acts accordingly. It is more challenging to train an adult ferret not to bite, but it is not impossible.

If you adopt an adult ferret who is biting, give him time. There is a big chance a ferret just needs to adjust to the new surrounding. If you saved an abused ferret , give him time before you start with the biting training. Some squeaky toys, kazoos and bagpipes have caused my ferrets to become upset. If you grab a sleeping ferret, a normal defensive motion is to nip.

Deaf and blind ferrets are particularly prone to snapping when surprised and are only biting because they are scared. Then try picking him up slowly, supporting his whole body, making sure he feels secure, and always speak calmly to him to soothe him. A deaf ferret may act similarly. Then pick him up.

Intact ferrets not neutered are more likely to bite when they go into season because their hormones govern their actions yet another reason to get your ferret fixed. Hormonal changes can also be caused by adrenal gland disease in altered ferrets, so treating the adrenal tumor can eliminate biting behaviors. Environmental changes can also stress a ferret and lead to biting behavior.

Moving to a new place, divorce, odd hours, houseguests and travel can all cause ferret crankiness. Environmental changes both scare a ferret and make it feel insecure. Hungry ferrets may bite to grab whatever might be food.

And ferrets may bite when they resent being caged up for long hours; a bored ferret is usually a biting ferret. The solution is to play more often with your ferret — more handling leads to fewer tooth marks, not more. Additionally, a ferret that is feeling stressed and insecure about all the changes around the house needs extra loving attention. Two types of bad biters seem to exist. One is a dominant biter, and the other is a fear biter. For both types, the keys to rehabilitation are patience and consistency.

If you decide to rehabilitate your bad biter, expect to get bitten. Make sure your tetanus and rabies shots are up-to-date and have bandages on hand. No matter what pain you receive, you need to give bad biters unconditional love and acceptance. You need to have the patience to stay calm and not react physically to the bite.

Daily or more frequent interaction is crucial, so the ferret learns that human contact is part of normal life. Paige Townsend, vice president of the Ferret Aid Society of Toronto, allows a problem ferret to bite her on many occasions with no repercussions. One of the hardest temptations to resist when rehabilitating a bad biter is the use of gloves. Using gloves may protect your hands, but they can also make the problem worse. A fear biter sees a much larger and scarier hand and becomes even more fearful.

Bad biters also learn they can bite hard and do little damage, so when the gloves come off, look out! Only use gloves if all else fails. Some of the initial solutions for a bad bite are last resorts only. Some people use bad-tasting sprays or creams bitter apple, bitter lime or pepper so the ferret is punished for biting by a bad taste.

However, we used the protocol outlined above to break her of this bad behavior. The second week, she bit times per day. By week four, she stopped biting altogether. Channing even risked getting his nose bit just to make sure, but she only licked though we were still very nervous! The secret: We used this step-by-step protocol every single time she bit. We never let her get away with it. After a month, she knew biting meant time-out. She also grew to learn we would never hurt her or leave her in a cage indefinitely.

An important note — ferrets inherently interact with their mouths just like the puppy in the photo above.

So you should never aim to completely punish and rid them of gentle gnawing, playing and mouthing you. You only want to punish hard and unacceptable bites. In fact, if your ferret starts to softly gnaw and graze you without pressure throughout the bite training process — reward that behavior by simply not using a biting protocol. If your ferret bites, we encourage you to empathize with your little fuzzbutt and try to understand why they are doing it. Are they scared?

Show them they can trust you. Are they in pain? Take them to the vet. Are they confused? Give them the patience they deserve to show them how to be a better pet. Want to brush up on what your ferret may be trying to tell you? Want to learn just how smart your ferret is? Tom Herring August 21, at pm. We recently rescued 5 ferrets from a sad situation.

We had 4 already, so this brings us to 9, more than a handful. Introductions between the ferrets went quite well, with one exception. One of the new ferrets, though fine with the rest of her group, would instantly bite any of our existing four ferrets any time they were together, and the bites were rough, more than just typical playing. I read through your guide, and although it is clearly intended for situations where ferrets are biting people, I adapted it to my situation.

I would isolate the biter with just one of my existing ferrets, and be ready to intervene the moment she started to bite.



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