Despite there being competitive eaters humans are not well designed for bolting food. Much of that is due to our upright posture and the anatomical changes imposed by that which also create some problem locations that are not problems for quadrupeds under normal health conditions. On the other hand, bolting food is very common among members of Carnivora and they happen to be well designed to do it safely and usually to be able to get problem chunks up again or down. 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) [Posted in FML 7146]