Last week I sent in questions about ferret-proofing my apartment.  Allow
me to quote from my own post...
 
        "I am planning to get my first ferret within a month or so, and I'm
         beginning to think some about ferret-proofing my apartment."
 
This is the quickest month I've ever had.  Many thanks to Brad (blaraway@
encore.com).  He provided me with a list of all the breeders and shelters
in Virginia.  I wrote a letter last week to two shelters and one from
Lynchburg called us Saturday.  He had a silver-mitt female that he had bred
with a champion in DC in an attempt to get a "panda-head" ferret, one with
a completely white head and neck.  The female offspring had a white neck,
but still has a silver head.  He GAVE us both females (1 yr and 6 mnth) as
long as we promised to keep them together.  Wow!
 
Talk about unprepared.  Although I had asked many questions, we had not
started ferret-proofing and we had not bought food, litter, or anything
else.  Saturday was busy.  But they are at home now.
 
We bought "scoop away" cat litter -- a type of litter that clumps up
when your pet does it's business.  You can thrown the clump away and don't
have to remove all of the litter.
 
Question 1:  Are there any problems with scoop away type litter for
             ferrets?
Question 2:  How often should I remove the waste?
 
When we first put the litter box in the half bath (their home), they
both used it right away.  We said, "Cool, they're already trained.  This
will be easy."  Ha ha ha -- little did we know.  They seem to have
about a 50% success rate of hitting the litter box, as opposed to using
our floor somewhere else.  It seems that if they happen to be in the bath
with the litter, they'll use it.  If the litter box isn't handy, they
won't bother to go back to it. We've kinda decided not to let them out
to play unless we know they've done their business in the box.  We are
going to buy a treat tonight to reward them we they succeed.
 
Question 3:  Do you think it's a good idea to keep them confined 'till
             they use the litter box?
Question 4:  What's the difference between Linatone and Ferratone?
 
We are also looking for good names for this mother/daughter pair.
Suggestions include:
 
        Samantha and Tabitha -- from Bewitched
        Hillory and Chellsea -- you know these (if you're wondering
                where Bill is, well, so is the rest of America :)
 
Any other good ideas for names?
 
thanks for your help
 
  ____________________________________________________________
  \ \     > James P. Garriss, Jr.    Hardware Design Engineer <
 _ \ \ __  > Home: (804) 974-5549     GE Fanuc: (804) 978-5766 <
 \__\ \__\  > Internet Address:        [log in to unmask] <
 
[Posted in FML issue 0605]