Actually, I believe their wild relatives are formally considered to be
crespuscular (Didn't check spelling and it's a word that often gets me.) --
most active at the low-light periods such as dawn and dusk, rather than
noctural.  It one of the three most common patterns of activity.  I think
people without a bio background don't even recognize that this option
exists so folks tend to write that they are nocturnal, or they see one of
the older references on the relatives which were sometimes based more on
conjecture than study and go from there.  Given how short their digestive
tract is a person does still have to expect them to get up to use the
facilities or to eat and drink during the dark of night so there will be
noise from that even when they change to a more human pattern.
 
If the non-sleeper goes to ear-plugs to get through the night put them
someplace safe and unreachable when ferrets are out or can get out; several
FML ferrets have died of blockages from them.
 
Having to postpone Scooter's corrective hand surgery due to a work
conflict, but diligently soaking and removing the scab has it down again
to normal (for an area with a protruding bone from an old injury and
subsequent tissue retraction) and he doesn't seem to mind at all.  Hope
can do it early next week since that timing is better than waiting, and a
June week's impossible chunk is upcoming -- have to allow for two weeks of
recovery for him before that or do it after, but have to know about some
meetings first.  Ah, life... ;-)
 
Thinning hair and thinning, wrinkling skin make me think of adrenal
neoplasias or advanced age; I'd get to vet who knows ferrets if I were you
to find out and learn your options.  The skin changes happen after it's
been going a while, as do pear shaped bodies from our experience as
long-time owners.  See the vet to be safe.  BTW, we get fur loss and new
coats from seasonal changes twice a year here.
 
Jen wrote:
>Which, well, is it so awful?  Posing nude for photographs.  Geez.  I've
>done that, only in the name of art, not magazine sales... anyone want to
>flame me for it?
 
You, too?  I did over a quarter century ago, and it sure didn't ruin me
(nor did it preserve my figure, or prevent scowl lines and double chins),
even though a few of the photos wound up in an art gallery so they weren't
exactly private (black and white with high contrast, very artsy and I don't
even have copies of the best ones to prove that once I looked passable --
sigh).  How many hundreds of ferrets and their owners here on the FML have
I helped over the many years?  How many of you have become my friends?  Did
I become a horrid, horrid person?  Tell the kids that it's a magazine their
dad/mom and you don't like because you don't think women are as respected
there as they should be, and if they ask add that a few women have now and
then found it helped them find a later career but many more try it who
aren't helped that way.  that should be safe enough.  Attitudes toward
flesh vary from person to person and culture and culture.  To me nudity
isn't a big deal; to Steve (who does like Playboys which we get) it is
personally a difficulty so he even puts on a bathrobe to go from bed to
bathroom.  We've been happily together for 20 years and married for 19
later this month  (Yes, he even loves me just as much as a misshapen old
fart, even when I do take a while between shower and closet. :-O, ;-P, :-).
I love him just as much with his mystery body, too, though every once in
while I insist on doing a leg, arm, neck, chest, back, and belly mole check
since he did yard work for college money as a teen -- and he does blush
even for that.  He's very modest.)  Tolerance of differences goes a long
way toward making everyone happy.
 
Sukie
[Posted in FML issue 2682]