As far as descenting goes: I had two little girls that were spayed but
not descented.  One plump, soft, fluffy red-eyed white, and her sister -
a small, compact, blue eyed shaded silver.  They occasionally poofed when
hassled, (guaranteed when they got their shots).  The smell was "mildly
skunk-like" and only hung around a few seconds.  Of course the unlucky
ferret who got the full dose might disagree ... But they themselves had
no unusual odor, certainly no more than the descented neutered ones ...
however, both eventually needed periodic expressing of the glands by
the vet (who threatened to change her no-descent policy just for them,
between gagging spells evey time she had to do it ...).  Don't know why
they kept getting impacted - Sugar rarely used hers, but Taz did on a
regular basis ... if I had it to do again, I think I would have them
removed during the neutering surgery, to spare them the discomfort of
the impacted glands being expressed.
[Posted in FML issue 4230]