Hello all,
 
I have experienced the same dillema the you have just described.  Actually,
my fiance and I are going through the same thing right now.  The funny thing
is our little girl is named Princess, as in Princess Leia.....:)
 
Anyway, We bought her from a private breeder in southern Ohio.  He had many
ferrets and they all lived in groups of 4-5 in long rows of cages.  I'm n ot
trying to say that this guy mistreated his ferrets, quite the opposite
really.  He seemed to know how each of his 200+ ferrets behaved and he knew
exactly where certain ones were.  We were looking for a sterling silver but
we got our current pretty little girl instead.
 
Well, that got off topic.  Anyway, as I was saying.  Our little girl was
very frightened when we got her home.  Whenever we tried to pick her up
she'd bite us very hard.  We always had people come to look at our other two
babies but we had to keep her away from everyone.  She wouldn't even take
treats from our hands!!!!!
 
So, to get to the point.  The only advice I have is to keepwith it.  When
you get her out of the cage hold her by herself for about 15 min.  She'll
probablytry to convince you she's dying :) Give her a treat as you let her
go.  And make sure you have lots of treats handy to give to her when she
could have bitten you and didn't.  This method is working for us.  We got
Princess in Feb.  and she is finally getting to the point where she lets us
pick her up regularly.  She is still afraid of a lot of people though.  Oh
well a little at a time.
 
On a seperate thread, My fiance and I (and our three monsters,) would like
to take the time to inform the FML that we are anxiously awaiting the
arrival of our two newest babies Sebastion and Cinnamon.  We are adopting
them from a very nice fellow here on the FML.  Thank goodness we live as
close as we do to Bowling Green, OH or we might have not been chosen.  I
would like to publicly thank Tony for allowing us too adopt his fuzzies.
 
Wow, that was a lot longer than I thought it would turn out to be :)
 
Later,
Jay  -Trained treat giver (the pushover)
Melissa -Bad Person (nail-trimmer, etc.)
Tasslehoff -"I'm the oldest, I can do whatever I want"
Pinkie -"Just give me a plastic bag"
Princess -"I'm cute, I can do whatever I want"
[Posted in FML issue 1973]