Recently my friend's daughter, Bugs, was in her best friend's dad's truck when she spotted a ferret running by the side of a major road. She asked him to pull over.At first he refused, because he's apparently afraid of ferrets. However, when Bugs scornfully declared that SHE would pick up the little creature, he turned around and was kind enough to throw a towel over the unprotesting creature and put it into the back of his pickup truck.
Bugs immediately called ME, as we already have a ferret in the household, begging me to foster the little ferret until we could decide what to do with it. I reluctantly agreed and they drove right over.The moment I got the ferret, I could see that it was a female, and she was in distress. I got up on the pickup truck, leaned over the truck bed, and tentatively picked her up. She didn't attempt to snap or wiggle free. She just lay there limply, eyes glazed, mouth open and panting.
She didn't look good.
So, as they drove off, I rushed into the house to dribble some water down the ferret's throat.
The ferret greedily gulped the water, which I saw as a very good sign. She drank from my fingertips as I called the vet's office to arrange a visit. He told me to come directly over.
On the way to the vet's, I kept the air cool. The ferret was in a box next to me, nestled in a towel, with the air blowing over her. Gradually her eyes became more focused, though she lay there limply.
By the time we'd arrived at the vet's, the ferret was looking somewhat better. She was dirty, had some flea detritus, and the bottoms of her paws were scraped from running along the highway. But, I felt that she was truly in pretty good shape, all things considered, unless there was something I couldn't see.
The vet agreed with me.
I had different options: Call the Humane Society, keep the ferret temporarily, or keep her permanently. I called the Humane Society, but they were closed due to Tropical Storm Fay. So, my only choice was to keep her for a day or so.
I took her home, bathed her, and isolated her in the spare bathroom (she could potentially have some disease that the other animals could get, although it's very unlikely). She has been hungrily eating for 3 days, and has had all the water she can hold.
She is amazingly sweet and gentle.
Sonosaur is now begging me to keep her as a companion for his ferret. Ferrets are social animals, and he should probably have a friend. Happily, she's been fixed, so there will be no worried of little ferrets running around.
And her name? Well, she was found during Tropical Storm Fay. But the name Fay looks very plain by itself, so Bugs and Sonosaur voted to add an "e" to the end as she's a very elegant ferret, apparently.
I'm still mulling it over.
8 comments:
And now you know why I have 4 cats.
Face the facts. Let me outline them for you in case you are still in denial.
1. You named the weasel.
2. You fed the weasel.
3. You took the weasel to the vet, costing you money.
4. You already have one other weasel, so its not like you have no idea about proper weasel care.
5. You have a weasel cage, weasel food, and are already cleaning up weasel shit. The marginal cost of one more weasel is not that much.
And you are still "mulling" this over?
The humane society did not take the weasel because they know it already has a home.
By the way, get ready to face a major paradox. Here is how it works.
If you have 0 critters, then the first one is a big deal. You have to buy critter supplies that you did not already have. You also have an amount of critter shit to contend with.
Once you have one critter, you already have supplies. So when you find a second critter of the same species, all you have to do is buy twice the food and clean up twice the shit.
BUT...and here is where it gets all paradoxy.....
The THIRD critter results in LESS MARGINAL COSTS! You do not need to buy twice the food or clean up twice the shit. You only need to buy 1/3 more food, and clean up 1/3 more shit.
The 4th same species critter results in 1/4 more marginal costs. The 5th critter is 1/5 the marginal costs. And so on.
Lazy, You are so right, on all counts. Except that I'd never heard about the lessening return on additional animals - is this a true factoid or an Iguanoid?
It is not the law of diminishing returns. That does not apply here.
This is all about marginal costs. A marginal cost is the cost to produce one more unit. You have to consider both the law of diminishing returns and marginal costs when you are producing crap to sell.
But this is fact. You have one weasel already. So the marginal cost for one additional weasel is not as great as the cost going from 0 weasels to 1 weasel.
Lazy, it's been too long since I took that class! Thanks for the refresher course! ;o)
P.S. I bought a new cage yesterday so that if we DON'T keep her, someone won't have to get one. And if we DO keep her, I'll put a hole between them and put a pipe there so that they can move freely about.
The marginal cost of a tube connecting the two cages is less than the cost of giving the cage away.
Have fun owning two weasels. It is yours. Nobody else wants it :)
Lazy, alas, you may be correct.
Thanks for the amusing conversation! I'm with Lazy on this - you now own a 2nd weasel. Come on - we all know you! You owned it the minute you told Bugs she could bring it over. You're just in denial.
And I like the "e" at the end. Good idea.
AQ, ;o) Yeah, you've got a point. But I truly am not completely sold on this yet... I have asthma and allergies, and two ferrets are twice the dander, too...
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