health update: Belle and Tigger are doing much better and getting over
their cold/infection.  Tigger started eating Totally Ferret almost 3 weeks
ago and Belle stopped eating her duck soup Friday night and I went into a
panic.  But she gained so much weight that skipping one meal wasn't going
to worry me so much.  Then no duck soup Saturday, or Sunday.  Ok PANIC!!!!!
But she still wasn't losing any weight and she was drinking water.  Well we
were in the bedroom having a talk and she ate some Totally Ferret out of my
hand..HAPPY DAY!!!!  Well then she took a big mouth full and ran to her
private hidy-hole; then she came back and took 4 more mouth fulls.  She had
been eating TF since Friday, but hiding it so I didn't know.  At our last
trip at the vet we got blood from her and her liver levels were normal.
Last year they were really bad and the old vet gave me the impression that
she would have liver problems for the rest of her life.  Not true.  So now
Belle is all healthy and so is Tigger.  The vet did say that her sugar
level was in the low normal but it is still normal and she is not worried
about it.  Thank goodness, I can't take the stress anymore.  So now they
are playing with each other and having a good time.  They go to the vet
next week for follow-up and distemper shots.
 
unsupervised freedom: I leave my ferrets out all of the time.  Their cage
is open and they go in everyday for a while.  Even though they spend most
of their time in their bed in our bedroom.  I have a big fluffy dog bed
with sleep sacks and shirts and a travel bag for them to crawl into.  Our
dinning room is their play room with their cage, ferret freeway/clear tube,
hard clear tubes with balls attached to them all over the place and another
big travel spaceship shaped case in the living room along with their toy
and sand box.  They have litter boxes, food and water in several places and
they like it very much.  But I wonder sometimes if it is best because they
are not dookers'.  They will play and have a good time among themselves but
I don't know how long they play while I am at work and I don't know if the
amount of time that they play while I am there is enough.  They will get up
at 5:45 A.M. every morning and play in the dinning room and they will play
at night.  I am concerned some about how happy they are as in my attached
post "Am I a good parent".  I do know that when we got Belle she was in her
cage all day, then we left her out after awhile, then we went to my mom's
and she was in a small room, she was very depressed, got Tigger, 9 month
transition for these guys, when we got our house and they had free roam,
they were totally different, so happy.  We fixed all the dangers so I saw
no reason to keep them in their cage.  They sleep alot so if anyone knows
why this is bad I would be interested in reading about it.
 
Best wishes to for great health and great fun.....Anna, Belle & Tigger
 
My prayers are with all of those who have lost their loved ones.
 
Belle:  "Mom, don't be getting no ideas about closing that cage door with
me in it"
Tigger:  "Mommy, I love you, I love you, I love you!"
Belle:  "Ok Tigger, I've seen that look in her eye before she is thinking
about closing the door"
Tigger & Belle: "OK, OK, you can play with us"
[Posted in FML issue 2495]