VERY late Friday report

Hi all, so sorry this is so late. I’ve been in bed for the last 2 ½ days with my lovely friend Fibromyalgia!

 

Thursday, New Year;s eve was terrific. I had Bonnie, Nigel, Sue and her hubby James, Debbie and her hubby Eric my friends Ang and Johnny over for dinner. We all thought it was REALLY funny that I was cooking for our regular Friday volunteer who wasn’t coming in the next day because she would be hung-over J  We all had a nice time together and it really reminded me that we, as a group have to keep up with the social ‘fun’ stuff. So Deb Cole and I will be chatting in the next couple weeks to figure out our next fun day.

 

So Friday, I couldn’t get out of bed. I was just beat from cooking and cleaning for the 10 guests we had for dinner. The fibro pain was horrific! Mirek started the first runs at about 4pm and after quite a few heavy pain killers I joined him at about 6ish. The first group was Marla, Jasper and Storm. Someone in Jasper/Storm’s cage had red poop. It looked like they had eaten red blanket but there was no red blanket in the cage. All else was good and they had about 3 hours out-of cage time.

 

Baby and Ross were group #2. It was a nice surprise to see their cage (Baby/Cutie) pretty clean! I guess we now know it’s Bob who is the slob? Ross and Baby were out for about 2 hours and I found them cuddled up together in one of those lovely doughnuts on the floor.

 

Baby stayed out and I let Cutie be with him for group #3. Baby mostly slept but Cutie was his good ‘ol self.

 

Group #4 was the big group of 7. They were out for about 2 ½ hours and still going strong!! Poops were good, a little soft all around. My apologies to Katie, I cleaned as many cages as I could but can’t bend to clean the lower cages so I didn’t.

 

Mirek once again helped me clean the rooms after play-time and was still so shocked that ferrets manage to get poop UNDER the litter boxes. The floor was lightly mopped as I was still in a lot of pain and Mirek was super tired from a long day of playing ‘ferret dad’.

 

Hope everyone had a super holiday season and a very happy New Year!

 

Love Randy

Re: [ferretvolunteers] Monday .. + test litter pan for Baby

Just to add to Sue's report ...

While at home, I guesstimated and cut open a plastic container to use as a corner litter pan for Baby since he likes to dump in the bottom left corner of the cage. Well, I guessed the size wrong, so it's a little small, but I put newspaper on the bottom and "showed" it to Baby, who did do a trial back-up into into ... while I held my breath and hoped he'd do his business too -- LOL -- but he didn't. Later cutie checked it out and tried to move the newspaper and container. I forgot to insert a whole into the container, to clip to the cage.

I left a few folded pieces of newspaper on top of the cage. I'll get around to making a hole in the container and drop more newspaper off at the shelter. Since Baby normally backs up into that corner, I'm hoping the container will work. If yes, then I'll make a better sized container.

Failing that, Sue suggested using incontinence pads, attached to the sides and bottom of the cage.

Hopefully we'll be able to solve the messy cage problem. That will just leave the messes that Baby makes while free roaming.

...Nancy

Monday ..

As I'm now sharing my shift with Nancy it's become much easier on me .. and the ferrets get more attention as I was finding on my own all I seemed to do was clean !! okay, I admit I've slowed down a lot !!

Pleased to see most of the poops were pretty good, not one really yuckky one .. still a few quite soft .. but much better than last week. Hugo went for a stroll while Trixie and Bilko got rid of their excess energy and the group was fine together when we came back.

Jasper put Marla down and told her to lay off .. she's funny, after that I could hear someone chuckling around and couldn't find out who it was .. it was Marla going from cage to cage trying to get a reaction !! Little devil .. she's a ****-disturber !!

All it all, everyone seemed alert and perky .. Tessa wasn't anywhere near sleepy after her group had been out for two hours and she came out again later while I was cleaning the room and could keep an eye on her, we spent lots of time at the gate as she jumped up and over .. and I think we finally tired her out !!

Bob Baby and Cutie actually got even longer out than was marked on the sheet, Nancy went to town on the cage so they were out until we left about 8:30 .. they were all sleeping by that time .. but we had loads and loads of loving with them.

Everyone adored their N bones .. and I really enjoyed watching them with them .. some shared, one on each end .. a kodak moment but my camera is still on the fritz

Nancy also sorted and labelled the containers in the back cupboard and on the stairs ..

The wet blanket from the stoller (used at the show) is hanging near the sink, think it was just water but didn't sniff it) .. and there was other stinky wet bedding hung in the front room.

Cheers all, Sue (and Nancy)

Cinnamon & Sugar

Dr. Lane saw Cinnamon this morning. As per Randy's instructions, he was given a Lupron shot.
Blood was extracted for testing. Other than being very scrawny and thin, there did not seem
to be an immediate cause for concern. We will know more when the blood test results are back.
To reduce the volunteer shift workload, I have taken both Sugar and Cinnamon home.
I am hoping to fatten up Cinnamon with a/d.
Neither Ginger nor Felix flinched at the sight of 2 new furry faces sniffing and exploring their territory.
These 2 weren't bothered by seeing the cats either. Poor Floyd. He is nervous of his own shadow.
When Sugar got within 2 feet of him, he shreiked in terror and galloped up the stairs to find a hiding place.
I found him hiding in the bottom dresser drawer.
The new kids are safely locked up in Floyd's cage while he has full run of the house. I need to assess whether
further ferret proofing is required. None of my threesome are chewers so I may have to thin out the toy supply for the new kids. 
Have a super weekend, everyone.
Noreen

---

Internet Explorer 8 makes surfing easier. Get it now!

Owen

Owen went to the vet last night. It looks like he has an enlarged left adrenal (surprise, surprise) maybe that's why he has no fur from the waist down ....

 

Also his blood sugar was low 2.8 so he's on Pred, but thankfully it's to be given in tone. He even fought me over that, I had to force some in his mouth .. he really doesn't like me much, nasty woman, forcing nasty stuff in his mouth. He doesn't come out of the cage unless I physically take him out. I gate him in the bedroom so he has a safe place out of the cage.

 

I'm hoping after his Lupron shot last night, and with the pred he'll perk up. He's drinking, eating some dry 8in1, I'm still trying to get him to eat soft.

 

Sue

Monday ..

Well I will try and remember some details from what was mostly swarming dooking furries and poop .. lots and lots of poop ... the time flew by, I didn't really even get to sort out all their names, let alone personalities, but one thing for certain, the new group  Bob, Valentino, Cutie? and Baby are SLOBS, utter SLOBS. There were poops on both levels of both cages. Randy put Baby on his own on the bottom. I pretty well had to take everything apart to clean. I added an extra litter pan to each cage .. it really does take up too much room, but I had to do something !!! I didn't change their blankets, but when I was refolding and putting them back I realized they probably could use a change shortly, I think these were just put in, I remember just reading a post about how bad their cage was .. no change today. But they certainly kept themselves amused and didn't appear to notice that I didn't have much time to spend with them, except for I belive Cutie who tried to climb up inside my jeans a couple of times. We played a little, they went nuts !!

 

Cash Loot and Jinx were out in the back room, while the foursome were in the front. Later I moved the foursome to the back, took Cash Loot and Jinx out for a stroller ride, and let the huge group out in the back room. When I got back in the two first groups went back to their cages and the large group had both rooms to romp in while I tried to finish up the cages. Haven't cleaned this many cages for a long time .. have to admit towards the end I was flagging badly .. my apologies to tomorrow's volunteer about the dried poop near the wooden gate, my scraper has disappeared and I couldn't get the ruddy thing up or find anything to scrape it with. Sorry it's still there ..

 

I did manage to refill the litter bin, but the food bin is very low and I couldn't find any more food. Hopefully tomorrow's volunteer is OK to bring some ???? not sure who that is ..

 

Also Baby needs to go to the vet .. can anyone take him in ???

 

Don't know where the time went, flew by - cheers all, Sue

 

 

Cover Needed - April 12 & 26

The mystery has been solved .. Bonnie remembered an email asking for cover March 31st, April 12 and April 26.

 

I remember this now too because they are all very bad dates for me, once I looked at my calendar I remembered the email too, I must have deleted it. The 26th is bad for a few volunteers because we are doing the Open House at Toronto Animal Services on the 25th, hopefully someone who is not helping out on the 25th can take the 26th, as it's a lot to expect of someone to give up their entire weekend.

 

Also this raises the issue of co-ordination .. we can't expect Randy to 'manage' this .. but it's easy for dates to fall through the cracks .. at one time we had an online calendar, maybe we need something like this again .. so we can manage coverage as a group .. comments ?? suggestions ??  I have to admit I don't even know if I have sign on to the yahoo group, maybe the calendar is still there ??

 

Sue