Hi!
 
You posted about ferrets and babies, and whether it was okay to have them
live together.  I'd respond in this way.  A new born baby weighs
approximately 8 pounds, 3-4 times the weight of your average ferret.  They
are also horrifically uncoordinated, like to shove things (especially furry
things) into their mouths - AND have remarkable grip strength.  The point is
that the baby is a danger to a ferret.  In the only case in which I know a
baby was bit by a ferret, it was because the baby was really injurying the
poor creature.  Dogs and cats are larger animals, and can get out of the way
of a baby, and thus aren't in as much danger - but as we all know, ferrets
don't run from anything (mine like to bait dogs!), and they can't jump out
of the way like cats.  My advice would be to keep babies and ferrets
seperated unless supervised, just to be sure...
 
As for the lethality of ferret poop... well.... eating excrement of any sort
is usually a bad idea!  The ammonia in ferret unrine can be a severe eye
irritant, but I somehow doubt you'd let a baby play in a ferret's litter
box!  Anyway, it is certainly no worse than cats....
 
TTFN,
 
Gwen M. Daley
[log in to unmask]
Department of Geological Sciences
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0420
[Posted in FML issue 1636]