I guess I missed the original question, but someone apparently asked about
how to keep ferrets cool during hot weather.
 
Cris suggested this:
 
>What I have been doing is frezzing a few 20oz coke bottles (the platsic
>kind) and putting one or two in the cage by their bed.  I also have a
>towle on top of the cage to pretty much covers the sleeping area.
 
Yes, that works, especially in humid environments.  I use that method here
in Turkey when we take our ferret on beach holidays with us!  But where
Chris is, New Mexico, the air must be pretty dry.  Here you can use a trick
the Aussies taught me: the Kalgoorlie Meat Cooler (Sarah, you listening?).
A technique for keeping meat from rotting, named for the town of Kalgoorlie.
I have shared it with this list before.  It's far easier to set up than it
is to pronounce!
 
Get an old towel or burlap sack, make it good and wet (but not dripping) and
lay it over the top and maybe the sides of the cage.  Put a bucket of water
on top of the wet cloth.  Wet a rag or hand towel, and drape it over the
side of the bucket so that one end is in the water, the other laying on the
wet towel.  The "wick effect" will draw water out of the bucket and keep the
top of the cage wet.  Constant evaporation cools down the cage interior.  It
sure worked well for me in Australia, as long as humidity was not too
high--in which case, of course, evaporation slows down.  For high humidity,
use the frozen coke bottle trick--but they melt after some hours!  I'm not
sure about the fans--maybe the draft could cause colds?
 
Hope that helps some of you this summer!
 
Cheers,
 
Sue Kocher <[log in to unmask]>
[Posted in FML issue 1537]