I know some of what I'm responding to is a few days old, so bear with me.
Someone had posted about having a biter that they'd tried 'everything" with
including "bitter apple, time-outs in the cagee, nose-slapping, etc." In my
experience, this often leads to mad, angry ferrets.  If kindness, handling,
and ferretone aren't working for the 'rambunctious' ferrets (i.e. bite for
fun, not for fear) I'll treat them like ferrets.  Scruff them, hiss at them,
and drag them for a few feet across the carpet.  Usually the hiss is
sufficient to get the point across.  My personal belief is that any negative
reinforcement applied to a fear biter will only make matters worse.  They
seem to bit6ce out of a lack of trust.  Bitter apple, nose-thumping, and
yelling certainly won't improve the relationship.
 
Re: Microchipping.  I'm not sure what the paranoia is about.  As I
understand it (and therein my lie the problem) the microchip isn't a homing
beacon that one can use to locate the ferret (or human).  The only purpose
it serves is to identify the animal when scanned by a reader.  Our Humane
Society here in Burlington has one and they do scan strays.  I don't know if
the individual animal control agencies in the county have them as well.
 
[The part about the Sawyer posts was deleting with Erin's permisison.
He commented on how well thought out the posts were and urged us to work
together, but since the section also had a lot of animal rights talk in
it, Erin said I could delete it if I wished, and I accepted.  BIG]
 
                                        -Erin...
 
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   Mr. Erin M. Ennis    |       Any sufficiently convoluted argument can
 eennis(at)zoo,uvm,edu  |       be made to appear to be science as the
 Water Resources Major, |       layman equates incomprehensibility with
     Biology Minor      |       science.                -Unknown
    Uni. of Vermont     |
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[Posted in FML issue 2394]