To Lisa Mesplay and <anon>, both of whom asked about ferrets who dig
in their litter or food:
 
Young ferrets often think it's great fun to play in their litterboxes.
Most of them outgrow it, but in the meantime, the solution may be to
put less litter in the pan and keep the pan dirtier.  Don't change the
litter completely: leave some "mess" in the pan, and cover it with
just enough litter that it's dry to walk on.  If it's a big pan, or
your ferret digs at the edges of the newspaper, smear some feces
around the edges, too.  Very few ferrets will play in a dirty pan.
Once the habit has been broken (a matter of a month or two, usually),
gradually replace more and more of the litter until you can do a
complete change.  (At least, that's what worked with both of our
determined litle pan-diggers.)
 
I haven't really come up with a good solution to food-scattering,
except to put the dish in an enclosed space (a tray with a rim, for
instance) and just let them dig.  They seem perfectly happy to eat the
food they've dumped onto the floor, so it doesn't bother me much.  If
that's not feasible, putting less food in at once may help, or you
could try setting a couple of golf balls in the dish.
 
Carpet-digging is another hard habit to break.  The best suggestion
I've found is to put down plastic carpet runner in your ferret's
favorite spots.  Eventually we moved to a house with no carpets, which
is probably the only foolproof solution. :)  (Of course, they still dig
at the chair...)
 
Hope this helps,
- Pam in Rochester, NY  ([log in to unmask])
Ferret FAQ: rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/ferret-faq/part[1-5]
[Posted in FML issue 0995]