With warmer weather approaching, the topic of doing darkness without creating other health problems arises, basically, how much is too much darkness, how much is too little, and how do you avoid things like lack of ventilation and too much heat. That is not always an easy problem. Okay, we know that darkness should always be available and we know that ferrets need loads of exercise (both physical and mental) -- which also means enough room needs to be available. If a person can't provide those then there is the chance that the person has more ferrets than can be safely cared for, and none of us want to accidently slip over from being careful ferret people to becoming animal hoarders. That is a given. Having darkness available for enough hours does not mean that the ferrets have to be in covered cages with closed windows and no air circulation. It is possible to work areas they can go to on their own by placing black sheeting over furniture that has hideaways underneath, or putting bedding into the far end of a closet in their ferret-proofed play room, or providing nesting boxes with draped entries, or many more options. As to how much access for how many hours they need to darkness: http://ferrethealth.org/archive/SG569 When warm weather (and worse is hot weather) is present it is much harder to provide that darkness, so be careful to not trade one health problem for another with too much caging and too little ventilation. Everything in life has its nuances, its upsides and downsides, and everything needs to be balanced. Sukie (not a vet) Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html http://www.miamiferret.org/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html [Posted in FML 6266]