Can ferrets be litter trained?

Of course! The one who is best at litter training kits is their mother, so I usually say they in principle are born litter trained.

This is a good reason not to separate them from their mother, they should be at least eight weeks old.

When you bring your ferrets home, your task is to reinforce their inborn litter training.

What you should not do is:

• Punish them if make a mistake.
  They aren't going to understand why, so it won't help, rather the reverse.

• Reward them when they do the right thing.
  This is most important at the beginning, when you should encourage them as often as you can, and perhaps give them a small piece of something tasty a few times per day.
• Quickly clean after them when they do something wrong.
  One way ferrets decide where to go is by smell. If the floor smells like a ferret toilet, they'll think it's OK to go there.
• Study them so you get a feeling for why they do what they do.
  There's usually a very good reason, from a ferret's perspective, why one corner is better than another.
  They also have very logical reasons to prefer one litter box before another: Some may think an empty one is too empty, so it's not clear it really a litter box; Some may think a partially filled one is too dirty to use, so the floor next to it is obviously a better place.
• It's a good idea to have some newspaper or something just next to the boxes, as they'll usually wipe their butts there after using the box.
• If they persist in using a place where you can't put a box, try to put something that smells like it's definitely a toilet, like a favourite sweater, there for some time.

How do I manage the hotel service for the ferrets living with me?

I use a box filling used of granulated recycled newspapers. One advantage is that since my ferrets like to dig in sand and earth, the litter boxes doesn't smell like play boxes..

If you use sand, don't use clumping sand, as it's likely not good for the ferrets' airways. Wood chips is totally wrong for ferrets, either as living material or litter box filling.

We've got four boxes where we live, which isn't a large place, and I usually empty two of them twice a day. There's thus always one suitable for everone.

When I empty them, I don't empty them totally, I only remove what needs to be removed, usually that closest to the wall, and I move the rest of the filling in that direction. Material only needs to be added once or twice per week.

In front of some of the boxes are heavy things, so they can't move the boxes and use the area between them and the walls, which apparently is a completely reasonable thing to do.

Does it work?

When Carmen and Rustan joined us, a whole week went by without any of all four using anything but the boxes. Since then, we've had periods of more than two months when noone has missed.

Roxane hasn't been staying with us for very long, but she seems at least as well litter trained as the older ones.