My ferret only uses her litter box occasionally, how do i make her do it more?

Question

I recently got a second ferret, and she will only use her litter box every once and a while, other times she goes where ever she feels. On her bedding, in her food bowl, under her water bottle. I clean out thier litter boxes out daily. I dont know what to do. Please tell me anything that might help.

Answer 1

I know exactly how frustrated you are!! I have one ferret and it's taken me nearly 3 months of HARD WORK and persistence to get him to use his litter box. I presume as this is your second ferret that you have the right kind of box (large square, not corner shaped) and have more than one in the room/cage.
OK so this is what I had to do to get Freddie to use his....I tried 3 different types of litter and he didn't seem to like any so I use newspaper in his tray now which is cheaper! Every time I saw him about to "go" I picked him up and put him in his box and if he did a pee or poop I told him how good he was and gave him a lick of FerreTone (magic milk to us!!!) But this still didn't work...he would pee just outside of the box which was soooo frustrating. Then I figured out that he didn't know how to get into the box cos every time he got ready I picked him up and put him in so I started to use the "push in" technique which basically means that when you see her get ready to go push her backwards into the pan so that her legs touch the lip of the pan and she has to lift them up to get in. This worked a treat with Freddie and now he has roughly about a 95% hit rate which I'm happy with. He is very fussy about his pan though and I have to make sure there is no more than one poop in it and that the newspaper is folded just so or he won't use it! LOL!! He's a fussy little fuzz butt but I love him sooooo much.
Good luck with the training and i hope the push in technique works for you!

Answer 2

For one thing, Don't clean the box daily. I know it seems grose but if you leave some poop in the box she will be more likely to use it. Mine is the same way though. Pretty much the only thing you can do, is whenever it looks like she is going to "go" grab her and throw her in the litterbox. (gently, of course... lol) Or rub her nose in it, (don't be mean, just show her what she did wrong.) And put her in the cage for 5 to 10 minuts as time out. Taking away their play time is capital punishment for a ferret, lol.

Answer 3

I have a ferret who just recently started to do this so I put more litter boxes in the cage one at each corner. It's working.
Also it might help if you only give her one floor of her cage to be on. That way she doesn't have a choice as to were to eat, sleep,drink or poop. Just put one in each corner.

Answer 4

Sometimes this will happen with a new ferret. When you clean her cage keep a piece of her stool in her box so to remind her to go there. When she tries to go other places in the cage, try to catch ehr and sit her in her box. If not take the fresh poop and put it in her box. It takes time and patience but it does work.

Answer 5

first of all NO NOSE RUBBING and second she might not like using the same box as the first so add another or in my case after getting the 2nd box with no luck i thought they might like a bigger one so i bought a long john and now they both use it with minimal problems they still use the other corner from time to time.