Litter Training

Litter Training


-Reduce the size of the cage by removing the shelves.

-Let the ferret choose his corner. More than likely it will be at the far end of a cage, near a wall. This is because ferrets feel very vulnerable when going to the bathroom, and like to be in as secure a spot as possible

-Cover the bottom of the cage with old clothes or baby blankets – don’t use the carefresh stuff. Since many ferrets have been going to the bathroom on carefresh their entire lives, they won’t recognize it as bedding and not litter.

Put immovable objects in the other corners of the cage – water bottles, plushy animals, food dishes. Now the ferret has only one bathroom choice: on his bed, on his food, or in the litter box! It may seem the cage is too small, but you’re only going to keep it like that for a couple of weeks as he learns what the box is for.

-Get large triangular or rectangular litter pans. Ferrets, especially males, like to get their whole body into the box, small triangular ones don’t seem to give them the room they prefer.

-Don’t get clumping litter – it’s uncomfortable to some ferrets and in some cases dangerous!

-Put some old poops in the litter box so that he realizes what its purpose is. Don’t clean it to well, since he’ll get confused.

-Ferrets are neat animals, they won’t want to go in dirty, unkept litter boxes with poop piled inches high – keep the box clean, scooping at least once a day.

-Give treats when he goes to the bathroom in the box, even if you have to put him there.

-Ferrets will go to the bathroom within 10-20 minutes of waking up. When you see him wake up, watch him, and when he starts moving to the wrong corner, pick him up and put him in the box.

-You may have to secure the box to the side of the cage, as ferrets will want to see what’s underneath. You can do this by punching holes in the side of the box and securing it to the cage with zip ties, or using Velcro.

Litter training outside of the cage

-Remember that ferrets go to the bathroom about 10-20 minutes after waking up. Don’t let them out of the cage until they go to the bathroom. Make sure that you give them a treat when they go in the box!

-Limit the free-range area until they get the hang of it. Don’t let them have free run of the house until they have good potty habits in one room, or even ½ room.

-I once read the following analogy: when a ferret sees a litter box, he thinks to himself, “do I have to go potty?” If he does, he’ll go to the box, if not, he’ll go on his merry way. When a ferret has to go to the bathroom, he’ll look for a litter box – if he doesn’t see one, he’ll use the nearest corner, or anywhere that has a faint odor of old potty mistakes. Therefore,


-make sure you have enough litter box, visible to your little ferret’s eyes, and
make sure you thoroughly clean any mistakes

At the dollar store (dollar tree store) they have those stackable organizers. They are small but Mork will use them.
We have one in each room. I like them cause they are small and not that noticable. Plus, cheap enough to cover
the entire house if you prefer!!

We also used the word POTTY everytime he goes. This way when we put him in his cage for a potty break
we say POTTTTTYYYYY. He knows if he goes we open the cage door to let him back out. If he don't go-we
don't open the door. Sometimes he's so exhausted he'll just lay down and not beg to come back out. lol
But always use GOOD BOY-after.

I find thats true
Its the best way to litter train your ferret: put it right away when he/she is about to poop lol or put your ferret in his cage if its too late. Give a treat when he goes in his litter box. Worked for my babies

When I got my ferrets they were all ready litter trained. Is it hard to train a kit?

Oh yes !!
They are not natural litter users as cats
But because they will (almost) always go in a corner, people start to litter train them
They are smart but it takes time

My kit was brought up in a large window crate at Petland with lots
of other ferrets. They all used the corner with no litter box. When
I brought him home we put him in a small cage with small corner
litterbox. We tied stuffed toys on the other three corners so he stopped
using those corners and only the litter box. After that we got a larger
marshall cage and did the same thing using those Mc.Donalds mini
stuffed toys. It worked great! So it was fairly easy to train we even
took out all the stuffed toys now he only goes in his litter box.

It was easy to litter train my babies IN the cage (because is a samll one) but for the outside ...
We have to watch them and put them in the litter box when they were about to poop or put them in the cage if it was too late to let them know that was bad
Now they are both litter train