The Noodles

Everyone laughed at me at first and they did so without any understanding. How you could possibly want that animal? They would say with disgust. I payed no mind to them as I saved for a year just to afford the start up costs. Who knew that buying an exotic animal would cost so much? I did hours and hours worth of research to try and understand everything I could before ever taking the first steps of getting one. Being 19-years-old I had essentially no experience supporting anything other than myself, so I wanted to be as prepared as possible to take on such a responsibility.

Ferrets, would you believe, are similar to cats yet small and exotic enough to require specific items the big corps always make money off of. Being strict carnivores means a highly specific diet, unable just to eat regular food from the pet section. Not having the heart to do a raw food diet, I did a significant amount of research looking for the best possible kibble diet for them. Treats followed this and I was completely intimidated by the thought of deciding my pets entire diet. I can only imagine how terrifying it would be for a new parent!

Originally, like any owner of a small pet, I bought a cage with intension of them remaining in there when I was unable to attend to them. Having such a soft heart I bought a 6-feet tall cage with three stories and a huge amount of room so that they would have plenty of space to play. However, I did not take in the consideration of them being so small. It took less than an hour for the little guys to slip through the cage holes and me to decide that they would not be staying in there anyway! It took a long time to ferret proof my room for them and to this day I am still finding new things that I must move or hide from them!

Owning two ferrets turned out to be a lot of work, far more than I expected when I first got the fuzzy noodles. And no, I am not crazy. They really do resemble wet noodles! At roughly 23 inches long my noodles go limp doing their best impressions of soggy noodles fresh from the pot! It makes it much harder to hang on to them when they decide it is time to run and even harder when you are trying to get them to do something they do not like such as a bath. Weighing in at a whole 6 pounds combined they make a great college room pet if you can keep up with their high attention demands.

My noodles do sleep 18+ hours a day; however, the few hours they are awake all your attention must be on them. They run, fight with each other, and attack you when they decide it is time for you to join their play. Their digging can be rough, however, so pay attention if you have carpet or other materials they might scratch at. A digging box is by far the best solution to this problem! Tunnels is another great one to get out some energy. Mine will chase each other in circles trying to attack one another.

I highly recommend, if this is an animal you are considering, that you plan to buy two. Ferrets are extremely social and will not handle being alone well at all. Also, trust me when I say that you will not be able to keep up with their energy bursts! Having two noodles is a lot of work, but the end reward is certainly worth it.