Handling an Injured Ferret

Handling an Injured Ferret
Hi! My name is Fran Friedman and I'm with Morning Star Animal Sanctuary and I would like to talk to you about how to handle an injured or hurt ferret on behalf of expertvillage.com. This little guy doesn't have any hurts but he is kind of wiggly. A ferret that might be hurt or injured would definitely be scared and definitely in pain and you want to be very very careful. Don't have any gloves here but it would be highly recommended if you have some leather garden gloves to use that for your ferret. No matter how long you've had your ferret, if they are scared and frightened and in pain like any domestic animal, they sometimes will bite just because they are not sure where the pain is coming from. Sometimes when you lift them, you may be actually hurting an area that was not hurting before and their first reaction is to turn around and bite. So I would recommend that if you are trying to hold an animal that is hurt, wrap them in a blanket so that you are not really putting pressure on any one place. They kind of like it and they relax. They like dark places and get them into a carrier to your vet as soon as possible. If you can't get them to a vet right away and you've talked to the vet and the vet says maybe clean it out and see what's in there, there is a way to hold your ferret which is also used for nail clipping and any other nursing that you have to do for your ferret to make them relax and that is just called scruffing. It's what their mom does when they are babies. It relaxes them and releases the endrocines. You may see them start to yawn, they are really kind of relaxed. You grab here, it doesn't hurt them and you will notice how he relaxes. Look at that and he's yawning already. I could just about trim his nails. This is what I do to trim his nails and if he had a bad cut, I would get him to the sink and scrub him up. If he had a broken limb or anything like that, definitely I am touching anything that would hurt. I could get him into a blanket and into a carrier and he is not going to bite me, so I wouldn't let go until I put him in there. Scruffing doesn't hurt. You can get a lot of things accomplished. It's better to get something clean and ready for the vet as opposed to just grabbing and throwing him in the carrier. This way you can see what is exactly going on, what happened and whats in there and then you can better take care of it. These guys love this! Right? They do!