Debate on whether ferrets are easy to care for... Depends on the owner.
How much do you, as a ferret owner, feel is hard work???  A few years ago
my husband bought me a pair of guinea pigs.  They were so sweet, and I
wanted to do all I could for them.  I joined a list just like this one on
guinea pigs.  Almost everyone on that list felt the same as most people
here.  Only they felt that way about their guinea pigs.  To them, guinea
pigs where the most special animal that God placed on Earth.  No other
animal, ferrets included, could compare to these sweet, lovable, intelligent
creatures.  And also no other animal needed such special care to keep them
happy and healthy.  You also had to be a very special person to deserve the
right to care for one of these sweet fuzzballs.  Did I find guinea pigs
hard to care for???  YES!!!  But only because after we adopted them did we
realize that I, their main caregiver, am very allergic to them.  Being in
the same room with them causes me to sneeze and my eyes to water and itch
uncontollably.  Handling them causes me to break out in hives.  What did I
do because of this allergy???  I kept the guinea pigs of course.  After all
I had made a committement to them the second I took them into my home.
Every day I cleaned their cage, fed them, and even handled and played with
them.  Once all that was done it was time for a long hot shower.  I did
this up until they passed away of old age.  So, IMHO, guinea pigs are far
harder to care for than ferrets.  It all depends on the individual human.
 
Next... For what it is worth, I agree with Bill Killian.  A loving home,
IMHO, is better for a ferret than an over crowded shelter.  Even if that
home may not meet the high standards of the shelter.  And again IMHO, (not
neccesarily Bill's) most of the standards are just too high.  If I was a
first time ferret owner and went to a shelter to adopt a ferret and was
refused because of my answers on an adoption form, and if I really wanted
a ferret, I would just go buy one from a pet store.  So sometimes you may
be doing more harm to the ferrets by keeping them in shelters.  In such a
situation a ferret in a shelter could have gone to a loving home, but
instead because of the shelter owners oppinion of an individual that ferret
is still in a shelter cage and another 7 week old kit had been bought at a
pet store and taken into a loving, caring home.  Marshall Farms just made
another dollar.
 
Dianne
[Posted in FML issue 2860]