Romana
Romana joined our business on Halloween Day, 1998, and she's definitely been a treat. She brought our business to the once unthinkable number of seven ferrets. As you can see, she's a chocolate ferret, with nearly solid dark brown fur from head to toe, black mitts, a white mask, and still is absolutely tiny and beautiful. The less than wonderfully focused picture of her in the window was taken when she was a year and a half old., and the one at the bottom of the page is he at two The pictures in the middle of the page were taken when she was nine and thirteen weeks old, but she was only five weeks when she came home with me. You can see, though, that unlike our other ferrets, she looks just the same as she always has, and other than growing a little, she never changed much. That's just fine, because she's cute as a button and the best behaved ferret anyone could want.
Way back when we had six ferrets, which we thought was an awful lot, and that number had stayed steady for about three months. Another ferret was definitely not in our plans, but one day I made the mistake of walking into a pet store, and there she was. Oh, I'd walked in many times before, held any number of beautiful kits, and put them back into the cage and left after buying whatever supplies I had really come in for. Romana was very different.
In the past, that store had only sold Marshall Farms kits. They were well cared for, and none arrived at less than seven weeks old. Romana came from a diffferent breeder and was the youngest they ever had. They took care of her like they do all of their ferrets, and that simply didn't work for a five week old. She was crying and crying when I came in, was biting when I tried to hold her, and it soon became obvious why she was upset. They were feeding her solid food, and she only had her milk teeth! She was starving to death with a full food bowl. It was the weekend, the managers weren't there, and the help had no idea what to do and didn't seem too keen on listening to me. I was afraid she'd die if I left her there, so I took her home, resolving to talk to the store owner during the week.
We gave her soft food, and Keith says she ate for two days straight. She became lovable and playful, and seemed to really like being around our big ferrets, Tenchi and Adric. They treated her gently, and within a day she was in the big cage with the rest when she wasn't out playing, and was clearly happy. I decided to keep her, and fell in love with this tiny fuzzy.
She was more of a challenge than any other kit we've raised. She jumps farther and better than any of our ferrets, is so good at climbing that she can outdo even the mighty explorer Ryo-Ohki, and can jump up an amazing distance. Add to that her miniscule size, which even as an adult allows her to get through any pet gate with ease, and you can see we have our hands full. She was only midway up the screen door when the picture was taken. She often climbs right to the top. We've found her in some interesting places.
We thought all of our ferrets had incredible energy. Well, as a kit, she never wanted to sleep, and still can run for hours on end. She plays and plays and plays some more. I've seen her jump on the back of Adric and ride him like we might ride a horse! She also likes our attention, and always wants someone to play with, person or ferret, it doesn't matter. You want to make Romana happy? Let her crawl into your shirt or top and snuggle or play inside your clohes, with you in them, of course.
On the very bright side, she copied the other, bigger ferrets and used the litter pan almost immediately. She's clearly bonded with Ryo-Ohki and Nyssa, and gets along well with all of the other seven. We've never had two ferrets not get along, and we've been really lucky that way. She's an aggressive and really tough little ferret, but I guess because she's so small she has to make up for it. She can thrash ferrets who are much bigger than she is, especially Pertwee, when it's time to wrestle. Oh, and she takes after Ryo not only by being small and thin and agile, but by eating everything in sight no matter what it is.
Since Pertwee arrived, one of Romana's favorite became thrashing the big guy, and yet, they are the best of friends. That became especially obvious when Pertwee was quite ill. Romana tried to mother him then (even though Pertwee is older than she is), and would lie down next to him, groom him, and lick his ears. Now, of course, they are back to wrestling. Romana may be our smallest ferret, but she wants to be in charge, and can definitely take care of herself.
Romana is a fun ferret. Even if she keep us on our toes, I am so glad she's one of mine. When she's being especially cute Keith will say, "I'm glad she's one of my four.", but that isn't ever going to happen. I just love this little one.
-Last updated October 14, 2000
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