Part I
 
A couple nights ago I decided it was finally time to unload the trunk of my
car.  What with all the various car tools and car parts in the trunk, it was
impossible to possibly fit a 50 lbs litter bag in the back.  After hauling
everything in and maneurvering my way through the cordoned off section of
our apartment (about 1/3 of our living space is now devoted to "ferret
world") I discovered that there was no place to put this stuff but my room.
I stacked it up against the wall, and shut the door securely...or maybe not.
 
A few minutes later the fuzzy little tyrants decided that a concerted effort
might be able to break open one of the doors to their cage.  So, being the
properly trained human that I am, I opened the door so they could run
around.  We've got 4 ferrets now, the 2 MF ferrets we bought at local
stores, and 2 "rescues" we were given to by a coworker of my other owner,
Molly.  So now we have Arvind (MF/Male/Chocolate/14 weeks), Mya
(MF/Female/Chocolate/13 weeks), Princess (??/Female/Red-Eyed White/6-8
months), and Spirit (??/Female/kinda-looks-like-chocolate/6-8 months).
 
Arvind and Mya ran quickly for my room, though I thought maybe they were
just playing chase like they do.  A few minutes later, Arvind came back.
Amazingly, in the space of about 4 minutes he had changed from a Chocolate
to a Sable!  I had no idea how this could of possibly happened, and then Mya
showed up similarly Sable-ish.  Spirit showed up wearing a Sable colored
mask.  Princess marched around in the stately manner that she does, still as
white as ever.
 
I started walking around "ferret world" to see what could have possibly
caused 3 of the ferrets to magically change colors.  When I saw that the
door to my room was open, I dashed in there to see if the ferts had somehow
gotten into my pile of car-related things.  Lying on the floor, halfway in
it's cardboard box was my catalytic converter.  The little living
pipe-cleaners had polished off the exposed for me.  ;)
 
I'd like to submit this as the first case of a ferret being inside a
catalytic converter, or maybe they're just the first car enthusiast ferrets
in the world.  ;) The way these guys surprise me daily, I wouldn't be
suprised to find them poring over the various car manuals on the floor one
night.
 
Part II
 
Now that we had 3 Sables and a snooty (not sooty) whitey running around, it
was obviously bath time.  Arvind was the first to go since he usually is the
one that leads the other three into trouble.  He is much less of a tiny kit
since the last time we bathed him, so we decided to let the bathtub fill up
a couple extra inches so he could swim in the deep end.  It didn't go over
too well with him, so we just bathed him and set him loose in a pile of
towels.  Mya was next, and she was no swimmer either.
 
Being exhausted from bathing and flea-dipping two squirming hyperkinetic 3
month olds, we got Princess next because she's the calmest of the group.
She rarely gets into trouble, rarely lowers herself to wrestling with the
other three, and doesn't even take off her collar very often.  She has a
weight problem though.  The previous owner didn't let Spirit and Princess
(except they were Snow and Booger then) run around very much and so they put
on some weight.  Princess is alot heavier than Spirit and less active.
 
Anyway, we put her in the bathtub and she slowly walked around the tub while
the water went from toe deep to tail deep.  We thought it would be
interesting to see what she would do when the deep end got to deep for her
to stand.  I placed her in the deep end, expecting her to lose her royal
demeanor and start scrambling desperately for the edge of the tub like the
previous two.  Not only did she not struggle, she FLOATED!  Her jelly-belly
held her up and just by moving her front paws she motor-boated around the
bathtub, still trying to look calm and collected.  She wore out rather
quickly though and started listing to port ;) so we bathed her and let her
go in the towels with the other two.
 
I was...stunned to say the least.  A FERRET THAT FLOATS??  Arvind and Mya
sink like rocks.  Spirit turned out to have a little of Princess' "talent"
but her belly is not nearly as large and so she didn't do as much of an
iceberg impression as Princess.
 
Anyone ever heard of a floating ferret??
 
Seriously though, we're kinda worried about Princess' weight.  We've been
told that we shouldn't restrict her feedings and that she should work it off
now that she has alot of room to run around and play.  She does play
sometimes, but her weight makes it hard for her to catch the other ferrets.
Does anyone have any experience with pudgy fuzzies and how to get them in
shape?  The FML FAQ has alot of good advice on weight gaining, but not much
on weight loss.
 
Thanks!
 
- William
 
 Now Owned by: Arvind, Mya, Spirit, Princess, and Molly
[Posted in FML issue 1839]