>Bill Waters writes
>Would I know it by now if he hadn't been descented? (I've had him for about
>a week now) He does seem to need a bath, but he doesn't smell TOO bad.
 
In my non-medical opinion, don't bother about descenting.  I have three
descented and one not and generally you can't tell them apart on the basis
of smell.  Two or three times a year something scares the scented one and
she stinks up for 30 minutes or so but it seems to remain local to her.
 
Semi-related is my observation on ferret smell.  We originally bathed them
about every 3 to 6 weeks.  They lost the ferret smell for about a week after
bathing then it started to return and got pretty strong by the time of the
next bath.  In the last year we have pretty much stopped bathing them and in
fact have found that they actually now smell less "feretty" than when we
were bathing them.  Most of the smell comes from around the ears anyway.
What we have found is that washing the bedding (they sleep in a collection
of old pillow cases) is far more effective at removing the smell.  (Keeping
the litter box clean is an obvious aid to reducing smell.) Also found that
washing the bedding frequently removes large amounts of ferret hair from it
and reduces the incidence of sneezing fits.
[Posted in FML issue 1422]