Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I purchased a female ferret that is showing a bad habit of biting hard (drawing blood). The pet store told me to thump her on the nose. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Dennis

Dealing with biting ferrets is rather difficult. Hopefully it is just a phase (baby ferrets tend to be VERY nippy!) I would not suggest thumping the nose, ferrets tend to be overstimulated in general, and I think this would only make them sassier. You could try bitter apple. I have also heard of desensitizing them using heavy gloves to handle them, and then once they are used to it and give up on the biting, no longer using the gloves.

Good luck, I have 3, 1 was very nippy as a kit, but is now an absolute lover, even safe with small children, but I also have one that was from a fur farm, she is VERY bitey, and I expect that due to her breeding, she will stay that way. (Go figure, she has lovely fur though!)

Midas

Do not thump her on the nose. That's probably why she's biting so hard now. She only weighs a couple of ounces, it's not that hard to immobilize her. First thing I would do is let her run around and burn off some of her energy before trying to work with her. Get a stuffed toy to put between the two of you until she gets better about biting. Let her take out her aggression on that. There are several ways to correct her behavior. You can scruff her and firmly tell her no or no bite. You can scruff her, drag her across the floor, and hiss at her (this is what her ferret Mom would do to correct her). You can also scruff her, firmly tell her no, and then put her in time out. An empty carrier is best used for time out and no more than a couple of minutes are she won't understand what it's about. Youb can also put tone or lax on your hands and let her lick it off to show her hands are good things. Above all, be patient. She's just a baby.
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I've learned that I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy it.

two of my ferrets learned not to bite or at least not hard by me judst saying owww slightly louder than my normal tone of voice...my one crazy demon girl I actually figured out listened better by picking her up, petting her as I kept telling her I was just goping to hold her and pet her and love her to death...crazy girl acted like affection was a punishment...lol

Thanks for all the suggestions, I wasn't to keen on the thumping idea so I am glad to have some better options. I took her to the vet today due to unexplained sneezing. Turns out Snowflake has a touch of the flu; the doc gave her several meds for it and said we caught it very early which was good. I'm guessing at least part of this biting is from just not feeling good; I know the flu sure makes me grumpy lol.

Thanks again,
Dennis