hi donald.
 
i know how you feel about leaving your little furry one in his cage all day.
i used to leave mine penned up in their cage whenever i wasn't supervising
them, and it broke my heart every day when i left for work.
 
i'd heard of people on the mailing list giving their ferrets their own room,
and i tried that.  but i felt so isolated from them when they were in their
room with the door shut.  it seemed as if they weren't even there.
 
i finally tried keeping them in a room, with the door open, and blocked
their escape with a piece of plexi-glass over the lower part of the doorway,
and it works wonderfully.  they can't get out unsupervised, but i can see
them, talk to them, and bend over and receive hand-kisses whenever i walk by
the room.  and my cats can't get in and eat the ferrets' food and pee in
their litter boxes.
 
i got this idea from pam greene's "ferret central" home page
(http://www.optics.rochester.edu:8080/users/pgreene/central.html).  i
modified pam's idea just a bit....the plexi-glass is held in place by little
wooden dowels, attached in two close-together rows running up each side of
the inside of the door frame.  that way i can slide the plexi-glass up and
remove it for unrestricted access to the room.
 
the room is full of cardboard boxes, tubes, non-chew-up-able toys, blankets,
towels, litter pans in each corner, and even their cage, with the door open,
since they like to get inside and curl up on their hammock.  the cage also
gives you a place to attach the water bottle.
 
hope this helps. it sure has worked for us!
 
linda
and joe, sally, alvin, dweezil, sparky, joshua, misty, raven, and
flossie (whew! humans, ferrets, and felines....this place is a zoo!)
[Posted in FML issue 1412]