i have recently became a member of your wonderful mailing list and i would
 like to express my excitment of being able communicate with people who share m
y love of ferrets. i received my first ferret as a result of a novelty that wor
e off. Around 1987 it seems everyone wanted a ferret because they were unusual,
but many people grew tired of their new pets and the end result in some of the
cases were tragic. My nephew grew tired of his new pet and i eagerly gave the f
erret a home and named him hun-hun. i knew nothing about ferrets but i was fasc
inated with them and always wanted one. The ferret had been fed dry dog food an
d this is what i fed him. I soon found out that this could have been a grave mi
stake. Within a year hun-hun began to run into things, i was eventually told by
 a vet that he was going blind as a result of the lack of a mineral called taur
ine that is found in cat food but usually not in dog food. Hun-hun also develop
ed heart problems when he was about 5 years old. He died of what the vet diagno
sed as a liver tumor. he was 6 years old, and i was heart-broken. What i would
 
[Posted in FML issue 0617]