Hi All,
 
I'm a newcomer to the list.  and am overwhelmed by all the good ideas and
suggestions here.  It's also nice to know that we are in good (if slightly
insane) company in our ferret-mania.
 
I have a remedy for plant-digging.  Pepper, our 2 year old female, was a
terror to plants, and both my wife and I agreed that chicken wire was not
too aesthetically pleasing.  So we tried various deterrents until we lit
upon LAVA STONES.  Like the ones you use in your barbeque!  A couple
layers of these dry un-interesting lumps of rock will deter your ferret,
mostly.  We have decided that ferrets (or at least OUR ferrets,, because
any generalization one makes about ferrets will be proven wrong by some
finky little carpet shark) are not so much interested in dirt as they are
in NEW DIRT.
 
Pepper "hey look Biff THIS wasn't here before!!"
Biff "kewl. let's trash it!"
 
When we first added the lava rocks they were both immensely intrigued.
They snaffled the rocks and scooted them around the floor, enjoying the
neat noise.  They dumped them out and snorkled in the dirt.  They stashed
piles of lava rocks in their cache.  But once they realized that these
rocks were here to stay, they left the plants and rocks alone.  Oh,
Pepper will grab one now and then to scoot across the floor, but only if
she's really bored.
 
"Ferrets don't like DIRT? What is this guy, crazy?"
 
No really.  They like dirt, but they will learn to leave it alone, if you
hide it a little.  Like it's easier NOT to eat the chocolate cake if it is
hidden in a box in the fridge rather than temptingly displayed on a platter
on the table.  We also vermi-compost (worm manure for you non gardeners)
which lets us compost year round even in the frozen north.  But it means we
have to sort through worms and dirt now and then.  The ferrets LOVE the
little 6" piles of dirt spread all over the tarp on the floor, and snorkle
through them for the first five minutes.  When they realize that a) it's
ALLOWED and b) it's not going anywhere they lose interest!  But they try to
get into the closed compost box at every chance because it's CLOSED.
Ferret psychology: just think fink.
 
I hope that the lava rocks will work for those of you who don't want to
use chicken wire.  I really hope they can't get thru chicken wire: it
makes up one face of their outside cage!
 
Steve (keeper of the raisins) Carolyn (wearer of the fuzzy sweaters)
Pepper (Carpet Shark Supreme)
and Biff (Carpet Whale and compulsive neat freak: "You want me to use
THAT box? But it has _something_ in it! I'll just go in this CLEAN corner
here, in the living-room, by your Mother-In-Law.....")
[Posted in FML issue 1343]