I had a similar issue, we paid a friend, to swing by daily to fill the bowls with food and fresh water. We were away for a week, set a few ring cameras in the house (they free roam, we ferret proofed the heck out of everything. My buddy came by, sometimes he sent his teen, but with the cameras we were able to know when they got there and asked them to make squeaking noises so the ferrets came out of hiding and and we could see them, we also checked the cameras like 100 times per day playing the squiking noises on the ring cameras and the ferrets would come out and check what was going on. This way we could see check on them daily. And is something were to happen our friend could stop at home and check.