To Carrie with the aggressive ferret:
I had one ferret, then adopted three more.  The 'old' boy and the 'new' boy
didn't get along at all.  One thing that seemed to help was temporarily
switching cages between the two (I keep them caged while I'm at work).  I
took Tank (new guy) and put him in Moogie's small cage, and Moogie was put
into Tank's bigger cage with the two girls.  I kept them like that for a
whole day.  Then I left Moogie in the big cage, and put Tank back in as
well.  They did fine.  I think maybe it's a territorial dispute thing, and
by letting Moogie put his scent all over Tank's territory and then
reintroducing Tank, I think that kept Tank from being as possessive of his
old territory any more.
 
To Nancy with the deaf ferret:
Tank is deaf.  He's also extremely hyper.  He doesn't 'dook' either, only
hisses.  And he plays very very rough.  He's bigger than the other ferrets,
and doesn't know when to quit because he can't hear their squealing.  I
generally pick him up when I judge they've "had enough", hold him for a
second, and then put him down somewhere else around something interesting.
He has a "zero" attention span, so that's usually enough to distract him.
He also bit and clawed a lot when I first got him, but I've gotten to where
I pick him up constantly and kiss him, and force him to face me and look in
my eyes.  He's a lot better, though it's still a problem.  Sometimes I
cheat and put a drop of ferretone on my nose for him to lick.  That gets
his focus on me a little better.  I stroke him as much as possible.
Sometimes now I get kisses.  That's better than his previous owner got, I
think, so maybe that's progress.  Is your ferret a dark-eyed white or
silver?  I understand that deafness (and I've heard rumors of
less-friendliness and even aggression, as well) go with that color-pattern;
it's a genetic link.  Tank is, I guess, a silver; his eyes are black
(though look dark red in a really bright light), and is almost white, but
has some black on his tail and a few darker-tipped guard hairs on his back.
 
To Gidget with the not-acting-right ferret:
I have no idea if this is pertinent at all, but I was reading the other day
in a several-months-old issue of Discover magazine about a virus called
Bruna Virus.  It's not very common at all anymore, researchers think, but
there's starting to be more research into it because there's a new belief
that it might have been affecting humans for years undetected.  It started
as a horse virus, but it's been proven to be transmittable between lots of
species.  The primary symptoms are extreme depression, lethargy, and
teeth-gnashing.  Like I said, it probably has nothing to do with anything,
but I read a lot of science magazines, and I thought it interesting enough
to mention.
 
Vickie, Moogie, Tank, Pandora, Flower, Ogre, and Subatai
[Posted in FML issue 2471]