Greetings...
I've been an FMLer for a few months now and been a part of what I gather are
regular debates on predatory-instinct, MF ferrets & associated problems,
etc.  One I haven't seen come up (and this may very well tell you how long
I've been a subscriber) is the whole shavings issue (insert scary music
here).  I'm in the process of getting a local pet store to stop keeping
ferrets in shavings.  If I can get some actual paper studies that outline
that it's bad, I think it'll happen, so anyone with some refs, I'd like to
see em!
 
I also know that there are a lot of different bedding materials out there.
Cedar has gotten a lot of DON'T EVER USE THIS warning.  Does this go for
pine as well for the same reasons; what about Aspen bedding?  Depending on
the responses, I intend to write letters to companies that recommend unsafe
beddings for use in ferret cages and cite references.  I've done this a few
times before to 'toy' companies that market rubber bouncy balls, soft foam
cat balls, soft latex urchin-like balls, etc as ferret toys and gotten
positive responses.  Whether anything actually HAPPENED I have no way of
knowing.
 
As I said, I'm sure this issue has arisen before (and will arise again) so
I apologize in advance for kicking off the next FML spam-battle.
 
 -Erin...
 
[Moderator's note: A couple of years ago someone asked me if I could pull
some of the better cedar shavings posts from past FMLs and forward them to
her as she urgently needed them.  The reason, I long ago forgot, but the
collection is still there.  There are some pretty good posts there -- I
don't think the age of the compilation matters here.  Anyhow, feel free to
ask the server for CEDAR POSTS FERRET to receive all 700+ lines of it.  Now
THAT's a great place to start!  BIG]
[Posted in FML issue 2270]