For those of you (especially Trish!) who are trying to work with biting
ferrets, I hope this helps.  When I was in school, many moons ago, I spent
one semester working with monkeys as part of my coursework.  These guys bit
(I'd bite too if I did time in a squeeze cage - no flames please!), and
could do serious damage if given the opportunity.  We had special primate
gloves to handle them with- leather with 7 fingers.  There were two 'extra'
fingers above the forefinger and middle finger.  When we had to get a monkey
out and it wanted to bite (which was pretty much always), the idea was to
offer it the fake fingers and let it chomp on those instead of our real ones.
 
Regular primate gloves are too heavy (IMO) for handling ferrets with, but
you could try making your own, either by sewing extra(?stuffed) fingers onto
a set of gloves, or slitting a set (below the fingers), stuffing a finger or
two and putting your real finger(s) thru the slit instead of into the
fingers.
[Posted in FML issue 1888]