# Now *that* was seriously wierd!!



## fenwoman (Apr 15, 2008)

I was outside this morning splitting a couple of logs for the rayburn, using the new log splitter thing my son got me to make it easier.
Anyway, I'd just stopped for a break when I heard a thump on the scullery roof. I looked up to find Sam, one of my ferrets. He was all wet and manky and the loudness of the thump and his condition, told me that he'd actually come off the main house roof some 6 foot above the scullery roof. It's seemed he'd been in the guttering. The thing is. How did he get onto the roof of my cottage?????:gasp:
I got the stepladder and called him to me and he came right away. I checked him over and found him unharmed so I took him back indoors and upstairs. I let my ferrets out every morning and they have the run of the upstairs. They have a fab time chasing each other, getting on and in my bed and playing under the duvet. Both of the upstairs windows were closed and neither gives access to the main roof in any case so I am still completely baffled as to how he got up onto the roof. Unless he got down onto the roof.:idea:
The stairs door was open and I know that both ferrets like to come downstairs if they can. I always close the door as they knock all my plants off the windowsill and make a mess. However, Lupin, the upstairs cat, can operate the latch and open the door so I surmise this is what she did. Now, the only way out of this room, up to the roof is.........................................up the chimney:gasp:
However, he wasn't sooty at all. But then I rarely light the living room fire and swept it a month or so ago. There is a fireplace in the study upstairs but that is capped off . So, it really looks as though Sam had gone exploring, had actually climbed the brickwork in the chimney, all the way to the top, got onto the roof and ran about in the gutters before spotting me by the scullery, splitting logs, so dropped from the gutter, onto the roof to get to me and safety. When I think of what could have happened, my blood goes cold. Had h e come out of one chimney pot and gone down the other, he'd have gone all the way down behind the rayburn and I'd never have found him. Otherwise he might have gone around the guttering and fallen from the full roof height onto next doors concrete patio and been killed. Or jumped onto the sloping roof beneath my (closed) bedroom window and from there, into my garden or next door's garden and disappeared forever.
Thank goodness I play with them and have a bond with them. He must have been very scared and realised that mummy means safety.
Thank goodness I'm blonde as the grey hairs don't show as much and my lot are giving me more every day.


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## sarahc (Jan 7, 2009)

*ferrets in a pickle*

They get everywhere.I lost one and eventually scratching noises alerted me to the fact it had gone under the stairs and fell several feet through a hole in the floor boards.I lowered a string bag attached to a couple of dog leads through the hole and shone a torch down.When the ferret went on the bag I reeled it in,I was desperate that the ferret didn't vacate the bag.It hung on tight though and was winched to safty.Don't you find they are completely void of a sense of danger?


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## enola69 (Aug 27, 2008)

i was thinking chimney as I read the first bit. Is there a way you can block it off while you dont use it? I know my gran stuffs an old blanket up her chinmey as she does not use it. 

At least he is ok! The what ifs could have been horrible.


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## fenwoman (Apr 15, 2008)

enola69 said:


> i was thinking chimney as I read the first bit. Is there a way you can block it off while you dont use it? I know my gran stuffs an old blanket up her chinmey as she does not use it.
> 
> At least he is ok! The what ifs could have been horrible.


 Sadly because it is like a small inglenook it'd need more than a blanket to block it off. I'm getting a woodburner installed in a month or so so hopefully that'll do it. But they shouldn't have been downstairs in the first place. I'm going to have to put a latch on the door so the cat can't open it, then I won't have to worry about ferrets up chimneys.


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## enola69 (Aug 27, 2008)

I have visions of you having to stuff a whole bed up there!!

Pretty lucky ferret tho!


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## fenwoman (Apr 15, 2008)

enola69 said:


> I have visions of you having to stuff a whole bed up there!!
> 
> Pretty lucky ferret tho!


 Lucky ferret and lucky too that I'd decided to split logs by the scullery and not across the yard like I usually do.


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## fenwoman (Apr 15, 2008)

I was outside doinmg the goats and my hands were cold so I went upstairs to get some gloves. It struck me that it was awfully quiet up there given that Sam and Alex (the ferrets) were loose. I called them, and no little white faces peered around anything. I felt sick as I just knew where they were. I flew down the stairs and outside, and looked up, and there they were, 2 fat ferrets running around in the gutter. They were scared and looking for a way to escape. Kept looking down and realising that it was a long drop. I didn't call them nor make a sound as I didn't want them to try to get to me and fall. I shot down the path and dragged out my big ladders. I extended them and shoved them up the wall and with shaking knees, climbed up and up. I then realised that there is no way to get 2 squirmy ferrets, plus me, down the ladder again safely. I need both hands. So, standing 30 + feet up on wobbly ladder, I tucked my jumper into the top of my pants, and got first Alex and then Sam and shoved them down my jumoer and climbed back down again with them safe.
I went indoors and put them in their cage and then scratched my brains wondering how the fiddle they'd got out again because the stairs door had been closed. There is no way they could have used the parlour chimney after all. But, the sooty marks on my beige teeshirt under my jumper showed that they'd definately been up a chimney. There is only one other fireplace in the house and that's the boarded up one in the study. The one which had been capped off when I had the chimney stack rebuilt last year. I pulled some shelves away from the wall, and got down to peer at the wall and there it was. The boarding had been pulled away from the wall. Only a bit. A small enough gap for 2 naughty ferrets. 
So. Althought the top was all capped off and I only have 2 chimney pots, one for the kitchen with the rayburn and the other for the flue coming from the parlour, ir appears that there is some kind of hole or spur coming from the upstairs study fireplace flue and joining the parlour one. I have repaired it now though so no more scary escapades are possible. Blasted stink-weasels are giving my grey hairs, grey hair!:devil:


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## cpiggott22 (Apr 1, 2009)

Crikey, poor things! I can only imagine the terror I would feel at one of my pets being that high up, thank god you caught them both times. I have a fireplace in my bedroom which had to be promptly blocked up as my rats were convinced they wanted to climb up it. Bloody animals, the stress and worry they out us through. My degus managed to open the door on their old cage and I found one of them huddled in a nook next to the dog's bed...god knows what would have happened if the dog had realised the poor little man was there. Makes my blood run cold.


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## fenwoman (Apr 15, 2008)

cpiggott22 said:


> Crikey, poor things! I can only imagine the terror I would feel at one of my pets being that high up, thank god you caught them both times. I have a fireplace in my bedroom which had to be promptly blocked up as my rats were convinced they wanted to climb up it. Bloody animals, the stress and worry they out us through. My degus managed to open the door on their old cage and I found one of them huddled in a nook next to the dog's bed...god knows what would have happened if the dog had realised the poor little man was there. Makes my blood run cold.


 Poor things??? Them, poor things???:bash:
They weren't the ones dragging heavy ladders at the speed of light and having to climb up to gutter level with hands and knees trembling. I don't do heights and my joints are too stiff to be able to shin up nimbly. Luckily because I always train my ferrets to come when called I simply called them to me and they came.
I think I'm too old for all this stress I really am. If anyone had spotted me clinging to the ladder for dear life with both hands, descending very slowly and stiffly with my jumper tucked into my pants and something odd going on and my midriff moving and heaving as the ferrets played ring o roses around my waist, they'd have called the funny farm.


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## sparkle (Mar 21, 2007)

fenwoman said:


> Poor things??? Them, poor things???:bash:
> They weren't the ones dragging heavy ladders at the speed of light and having to climb up to gutter level with hands and knees trembling. I don't do heights and my joints are too stiff to be able to shin up nimbly. Luckily because I always train my ferrets to come when called I simply called them to me and they came.
> I think I'm too old for all this stress I really am. If anyone had spotted me clinging to the ladder for dear life with both hands, descending very slowly and stiffly with my jumper tucked into my pants and something odd going on and my midriff moving and heaving as the ferrets played ring o roses around my waist, they'd have called the funny farm.


 Hire a bloke to help you.. a nimble one with lose joints : victory:


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## fenwoman (Apr 15, 2008)

sparkle said:


> Hire a bloke to help you.. a nimble one with lose joints : victory:


 good idea lol.Trouble is, with action needed right away, by the time I have phoned said bloke and he's got into his car to drive to my place, my ferrets could have thrown themselves off the roof.
I tell you, my knees feel like they are on fire and my shoulders feel like they've been wrenched out of their sockets thanks to climbing the ladder.


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## CBR1100XX (Feb 19, 2006)

Just removed a few pages of unfriendly off topic chat from this thread. I will point out this area is to chat about other pets and exotics it is not an area to argue or bring up other off topic stuff causing a normal animal discussion thread to turn into a problem. General friendly chat on any thread is okay and that's what we want to promote on RFUK. 

For those of you that find it difficult to keep the discussions relevant to threads and friendly towards each other then I suggest you find somewhere else to go. 

We do not expect everyone to be best mates however on a forum its pretty easy not to have to communicate with anyone you get annoyed with unless you are a mod of course. 

Also I know every one has opinions, I have plenty but funnily enough I keep many to myself so before you post an opinion maybe you should consider whether everyone that has access to the forum needs to read it. 

2010 lets remove the problems or just not post a problem as funnily enough a forum is about the words we post and lets keep it friendly and peaceful.:whistling2:


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