Ferret Attitude Issues....

Here are my carpet sharks Isabel and Achilles. Both mates since we brought them home They are both 3 yrs old.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php...757420&theater

The Issue I have is with our male (achilles) isabel is attached to me and would sooner follow me around the house than play with her brother. So we thought it would be best to get achilles a new buddy that he could play with (rather than get into regular mischief) So we went picked out our new fuzzy (also a boy) but he was only a month or so old. We brought him home gave the 3 of them a bath to introduce them and then let them run well that didnt work out achilles chased down the new male and draging him around, beating him up. So i put all of them in 2 cages baby in one the other 2 in another and let them see each other smell each other what not for 3 days before i let them out together again so let them out still a no go to the point the baby was getting mean. so we returned the baby and thought maybe if we got a bigger one he would be less inclined to be mean... nope.

I want to get another fuzzy but our little man is such a big meanie. I wanted to try a girl to see if maybe he would be more inclined to be nice as maybe it was a dominance issue with the male. But im hesitent to bring one home and have this happen all over again. Any thought from other fellow furrat owners is welcome.

We had the SAME problem with our male. We had gotten him and another female at the same time and introduced him to the female we already had. He has bullied her for 3 years now, on and off. He usually spends about a hour or so picking on her, when he does ( usually once a month or so now) then goes about his way and they all of a sudden seem to be best friends.

I would say it more then likely is him trying to be the alpha male. Keep introducing them and I would imagine once her asserts his place to the new guy, all should be ok.

Aw. I just get so mad at him (of course if he had bringings up like mine did lol) we agreed not to mess with each others ferret so they would just be attached to one of us but im the one beating his furry hide (not hard just wanted to clarify so im not accused of animal abuse lol). And its so funny because when i punish him he behaves better than when matt punishes him. But i just wish he would be as nice to the new one as he is to his sister (then again sometimes he isnt nice to her either) Im going to petsmart tonite to try one more time with a girl to see if its any better... It is nice to know that its not just our ferret thats a little [meanie] though.

get him castrated then you can introduce either sex as he wont have the urge to try and be dominate or wait till breeding season is over and try again as hobs tend to be more dominate around this time or year if he continues to play up castration is the only option ! but i would say its the time of year plus theve got to sort it out between themselves once that is done then it will settle down mainly but as i said id castarte him it will stop all your problems

+1 To getting them all fixed if they haven't been already. They'll mellow out about being with new ferrets a lot after that. I've had some experiences with introducing new ferrets, and what I've learned is that you sometimes have to let them "beat on each other" to establish some kind of pecking order. They've got a really thick hide and even though it looks really bad to us, it isn't that bad to them. I break things up if one of them starts to squeal, and DEFINITELY if one of them manages to draw blood, though it hasn't ever happened between mine.

Another thing you could try is keeping them in the same room, and if they have little cloth beds or something in their cages, swap beds so they get used to sleeping with the scent of the new ferrets. Then start letting them out to play around the same time, and then you can try introducing them into the same cage (if that's your goal).

I know this is an old thread, but here's the rule of thumb with ferrets.

1) No Pee
2) No Poop
3) No Blood

If none of these occur during an encounter between your ferrets, don't break them up or feel bad no matter how rough and painful it looks. This is just ferrets being ferrets. And don't worry about squeals. Some ferrets make more noise than others. I know a female that screams at the little things like butt sniffing. Breaking up a non playful fight will most likely result in disrupting the pecking order.

My male kit drags my oldest male across the room all the time. And they're inseparable buddies.