>From: Laurie ___________
>
>hello, i'm looking for information on starting a rescue for ferrets
>here in saucier,miss.i have owned ferrets for years & they are awesome
>pets .i have owned animals all my life & have more respect for animals
>than i do human's.i have rescued many animals over the years & would
>love to open my home to more ferret's.so please any information you
>can send will be very helpful....

(yes, of course we know you love ferrets, but considering starting a
rescue is a bigger step even than buying your first house.)

Before you begin taking in more critters of any kind, find out what all
the laws are in regards to how many you can keep in your town, area
county, state without being fined (and/or evicted if you don't own your
own property).

Then find out, in your state, what the licensing and registration
requirements will be for being able to posess more than the legal
number of animals that non-licensed citizens would be restricted to.

And *if* there is any special license to posess "exotic" animals,
consider obtaining that, as well, because ferrets are still in a
"gray area" in this respect, some officials may recognize ferrets as
domestic, while others will insist that ferrets are "exotic" and that
you cannot have more than two of them without the exotics licensing.
So, to make ALL the cops happy, be ready to spend a month's wages on
the licensings and registrations for posession of X-number of animals
on your privately owned property. (of course, if you rent this is
completely out of the question; any property owner can have any person
evicted for posessing even a single animal of any kind and the courts
will uphold the right of the property owner to do so.).

Before applying for the licenses and registrations, form either a
company or, if you can get two other dependable individuals, a
corporation. This will take up about another month's worth of wages and
time to pull together, but the up-side is that your proposed rescue
will have at least two to three people involved at the outset instead
of just one.

Don't hope that volunteers will mysteriously appear when you need them:
nobody likes to clean up poop and so even the most avid volunteers will
melt away and stay away after the very first time they help you clean
up after the critters. (All they'd wanted was to hold, cuddle and maybe
be given a "free" ferret for their ferret-sitting after you were the
one who fed, bathed, brushed, clipped the nails, cleaned the ears,
and otherwise performed all the necessaries for that you already got
scratched up or even bitten for having done; you will very quickly
find out that you can't afford volunteers like that! ) This is all the
more reason for including those who want to be part of your rescue as
members of either the company or corporation. The other members will at
least have the committment of being officers of the company-or-corp.
and to help you obtain supplies, help get everyone their shots and
treatments at the veterinarian's, keep the books straight and so forth
which you be wise Not to try to do all by yourself, even IF you try to
do all the animals' care every day all by yourself.

Okay, now that we've got the first two months' wages and time shot up,
we can now begin planning out the rescue, where to set up the cages
(away from the daily noise and racket, ferrets need 14 to 18 hours of
SLEEP, and they will not get restful sleep in the living room. If you
can set aside at least one bedroom or two that will be JUST THEIRS, it
will be better for them.), access to a close-by sink to wash your hands
between handling of each fur-person so that passing buggits between one
to the next is kept down to its minimum, and, VERY IMPORTANT, at least
one, preferably three ferret-knowledgeable veterinarians less than 20
minutes from your location who can see your animals at all hours in
any emergencies as well as, of course, for regular shots, testings
and treatments which it will be much better to have these done at a
licensed verterinary medical facility so that you will have a
court-recognized legal record of everything...another little item of
"just in case", because people who do their own testing and shots are
not recognized as its even having been done unless those people are
licensed veterinary medical folks with appropriate record-keeping of
the animals treated.

[Posted in FML 5901]