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Got a ferret

B

Blue32

New member
Hey guys, my girlfriend and i just got a ferret a couple weeks ago and i think this has stressed out my two corns. I have both of the snakes cages up from the floor but i believe the smell of the ferret has caused them both to regurge, cuz i feed the snakes the day after i got the ferret and the next day one of my snakes had regurged his pinkie. He had a history of this when he was a lil younger but he has been doing good for a while now. My other snake regurged just a little bit of her pinkie a few days later. I waited 12 days to feed them agian, which was today. The first snake ate the extra small pinkie good, but the other snake was not interested. Im gonna try to feed her again in a few days. My apartment is really small and theres no way to totally seperate the snakes and ferret where the snakes wont be able to smell the ferret. Is this common or does anyone know. I do understand that the ferret is kin to the mongoose, which eats snakes, so i understand there fear. Any advise would be great. Thanks
 
Also the snakes are around 7 months old. I am in college and until I get a bigger place my mom said she would keep the snakes. My big question is whether i should let my mom keep them for a while or if the snakes will finally get use to the ferret and not fear it.
 
I don't know if this is entirely accurate or not, but it's plausible..

Ferrets are descendents of weasels, correct? I'm pretty sure that in the wild, weasels feed on snakes. I bet what's happening is that the snakes are 'smelling' the ferret, and it's more or less scaring the crap out of them.

I say keep the snakes, and get rid of the ferret :p

EDIT: Just realized that you already knew all this, and that it was useless, lol.

I've read that there is something you can put in ferret food to minimize the odor. You're not supposed to bathe them though, because it removes essential skin oils.
 
OK ....Let me get this straight. You have a girl friend, two corn snakes, two new ferrets and one small apartment and your attaining college.

Are YOU stressed?!.

I would suggest not to get anymore pets. And yes if mom is willing, sent them to her house.
 
I had many ferrets in my youth, and their odor sure made me want to regurge. :grin01: But seriously, I highly doubt that the ferret odor made the snakes puke. I think you're better off looking at temps. I'd usually say that prey-size could be a culprit, but at 7 months, those snakes shouldn't be puking pinks. They should've moved up to larger prey a while ago, if fed properly.

Ferrets are in the same taxonomic family as weasels, skunks, mink, otters, etc (Mustelidae), and in the same genus as weasels and mink (Mustela). They are not closely related to mongooses.
 
Roy Munson said:
They are not closely related to mongooses.
Click to expand...
:-offtopic
Wow! after all these years, I'm reminded of an old joke about a guy trying to order 2 Mongoose. Nothing sounded right to him; Please send me 2 mongooses, please send me 2 mongeese, he finally settled on; please send me a mongoose, and oh yeah, send me another one! Sorry :grin01:

Back on topic, I have had ferrets and snakes in close proximity to each other in the past without problems. As Dean has stated, there is probably some other culprit involved here :wavey:
 
mbdorfer said:
:-offtopic
Wow! after all these years, I'm reminded of an old joke about a guy trying to order 2 Mongoose. Nothing sounded right to him; Please send me 2 mongooses, please send me 2 mongeese, he finally settled on; please send me a mongoose, and oh yeah, send me another one! Sorry :grin01:

Back on topic, I have had ferrets and snakes in close proximity to each other in the past without problems. As Dean has stated, there is probably some other culprit involved here :wavey:
Click to expand...
Hah! That's funny. :laugh:

I too used to have a ferret right next to my snake tanks (in the old glass days). Never bothered them a bit. In fact, I had an eastern king that used to track her movements hungrily. :grin01:
 
Thanks guys. Ill keep them here with me for a little while longer and keep a close eye on the temps. Thanks again.
 
Just wondering, are your snakes housed separately or together? I guess since you know which snake regurged at what time it's safe to say they are in separate enclosures, but I just wanted to make sure.

How many successful feeds have they had with you?
I agree with the above statements to really check temps. I've had a few regurges in the past and both times I disvoered that yup, my temps were a bit off.
 
Yeah, they are housed seperately. I have had mostly successful feedings. One had trouble for a lil while when he was young but he has been doing really good recently. I guess my temps were off a lil, so i turned the heat pads up just a lil. Now the temp on the bottom glass is right at 90 so i believe this should be good cuz its getting a lil colder in the apartment.
 
between 82-86 is where i was keeping the temps and they regurged, so i will just set the temp to around 85 and see how they do. Thanks everyone for the input.
 
I have 2 ferrets (age 5 and 4 since babyhood) and in response to another reply you are supposed to bath them with ferret shampoo approx once a month but longer doesn't hurt. Frequent bathing (as they stated isn't good) because like they said it removes natural oils and will actually make them smell more because their bodies thinks it needs to produce more oil since it keeps being washed off. I think they're amazing pets but as with any animal don't get one without doing lots of research.

On that note, I'm new to owning a corn snake and the ferrets and the snake are not even in the same province since I'm living in a dinky apartment with my bf and corn snake. I will however, be bringing the ferrets here ASAP as soon as I can find space/a bigger place so I'm glad this topic came up.

Even if ferrets were related to mongooses at some point in natural history...they've been domesticated so long they have next to NO natural instinct left which is why pretty much no other pet scares them and they just wanna play. They're barely even related to their own wild and endangered counterpart the black-footed ferret. Therefore I don't think any relation they have could be why the snakes are upset. If ferrets have been domesticated so long they have lost their wild footing a domesticated corn shouldn't have an fear associated with their scent especially since their scent would be different from any wild counterpart (mongoose, weasel, skunk etc.) and with a snake's great sense of smell they can distinguish a smell better than we can and even we know the difference (between a ferrets', mongooses' smell etc.). Not that I've ever sniffed a mongoose. Hope that made sense and was at least somewhat helpful. :)


Hehe I felt relived finding this thread. I'm reading so much about corns as I'm new to them and I finally found something I know about and can comment on and hopefully help with. Go team ferret.
 
THanks luvr, and good luck with ur new corn, they are great. And im to ferrets and I love mine, she is great and funny as can be. Thanks again for the info.
 
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