>Ferrets and/or polecats have existed for what millions of years?  Ferrets
>have been domesticated for thousands.  They've moved indoors as pets only in
>the last twenty or thirty years.  Although we keep our ferrets indoors as
>does nearly everybody on the list, ferrets wouldn't be around today if they
>couldn't survive outdoors.
 
This argument just plain doesn't wash: proto-ferts such as the European
Polecat were rabbit eaters, but they didn't just *eat* the rabbits...they
lived in the burrows for days after a kill, leaving that burrow only to make
a *really* short hop over to the next.  The only exception would be a mother
with kits back in the burrow that were too young to make a short trip to
another burrow.
 
Now, burrows are *nice* homes, if you don't care about the dark.  They stay
cool in the summer, warm enough in the winter...it wouldn't surprise me if
ferrets dragged vegetation and other nesting materials down the hole
(anybody know for sure?) - our domestic ferts are quite capable of
constructing impromptu "nests" out of whatever is laying around on a cold
day.
 
Hence, "temperature control" isn't their biggest problem.  As Mo' Bob was
saying today about the Blackfoot, running out of populated burrows is the
big limit on BFF populations.
 
In outdoor cages, ferts canNOT manage their temperature nearly as well as
their wild cousins in burrows.  In the Fredonia(sp?) mess, the piles of
straw was actually a start towards what they needed in winter, but grossly
inadequate.  Huge piles of old salvation army blankets/rags etc changed at
least every two-three weeks *minimum* would have worked much better, and of
course heated indoor quarters by far the best of all.
 
Besides the straw, one problem the idiot faced was that some of the ferts
just couldn't bundle up with others, since there were a lot of unfixed
males.
[Posted in FML issue 1713]