Has anyone else noticed that when excited the males are very prone to having a ruff of fur piloerect on their heads but the females are not? That seems to be and have been the case here. You can quickly test this by mixing a desired meat baby food with heated water and seeing who develops a head ruff. In the wild ruffs usually serve the purpose of making an animal seem bigger which can both reduce attacks and deflect an attacker by forcing the aim of a bit off mark. If this holds water (for males having this feature more often) then among possibilities to consider are that it could ancestrally have been useful in competition for mates and useful for personal safety when traveling between females' territories. 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.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html all ferret topics: http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html "All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow." (2010, Steve Crandall) On change for its own sake: "You can go really fast if you just jump off the cliff." (2010, Steve Crandall) [Posted in FML 6867]
