Howdy y'all, hope everyone's doin' fine out there!  I think that the reason
that children's faces are the target area in some cases of ferret attacks
is how they smell.  The majority of stories deal with kids under five years
old.  Think about how most kids that young smell.  The ones I've dealt with
smell like milk or some other yummy scent is on their faces from snacks,
the bottle or cup.  Ferrets have a great sense of smell heck, Booger can
sniff out a raisin from across the room.  My fingers have been mistaken
for raisins on more than one occasion.  Now if I were a ferret that goes
bonkers for human food then I might mistake milky scented kid faces for
the real thing.
 
Another theory is that a sound the child makes, whether it's their voice or
something else, may be a beacon for ferrets.  Pharaoh, the old mellow fert,
goes *NUTS* for a squeaky toy.  He runs and jumps straight up to where ever
he thinks the noise is coming from (he doesn't see well) and has bitten the
heck out of me just for that toy, not that he is biting to make me drop it
but because he can't tell where the toy begins and my finger ends.
 
Cheers,
 
Laura
[Posted in FML issue 2988]