Anne, Traveling:  Got to the critical refs in
http://www.ferretcongress.org (Just click on it in the menu on your
left.) and you can find a lot f vets for when you travel.
 
Sher, Second-hand smoke: YES!  IT IS BAD FOR FERRETS.  If you go to the
FML Archives at
http://listserv.cuny.edu/archives/ferret-search.html
you will find Bob Church citing a number of references on this in recent
years.
 
Recommended:
http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0309&L=ferret-search
&P=R13296
 
http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0304&L=ferret-search
&P=R21920
 
http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0309&L=ferret-search
&P=R15273
 
When time next allows, way not stop smoking, or try to seek help to do
so as soon as things calm down?  You could even plan that as a gift to
yourself when things are going more smoothly.  Don't put it off then,
though, because life always has its ups and downs, so if you wait too
long you will wait again, and again and again which is no kindness to
yourself.  Someday you may want a child and as someone whose lungs were
damaged by my mother's smoking (which also killed her and damaged my kid
sister) you'll find yourself with even more emotional pain once your
smoking is hurting them, though hurting the companion animal family
members is bad enough.  The sooner you can break the imposed addiction
chains holding you back the better off you and everyone else will be.
Amazing what advertising, product placement, and peer pressure can get
people to do to themselves, isn't it?  Still, they don't own you so as
soon as you can stop giving your health, freedom, and money to them,
please, do that for yourself, those you love, and all of your futures.
(Yes, I get emotional on this topic; that comes of nursing my own mother
for over a year as she rotted away from the inside out, and having her
cry on my shoulder each day that if she'd ever known what pain could
be she'd never have smoked.  I am her age when she died and think I'm
actually a little older now.  There's a lot she never got to enjoy
between her smoking (back then due mostly to the amount of money down
that rat hole), her repeated brochitis, her pneumonia and plueresy, her
emphysema, and finally her cancer.  She deserved better than that.  You
deserve better than that.  BTW, be careful with those butts; there have
been animals poisoned by them, including ferrets.)
 
Jen, Digestion: The nutritional needs of cats come closer to them.
Ferrets are mustelids, one of the last groups to branch off from the
canid (dog) branch of Carnivora, probably the last.  They are obligate
carnivoras so really need their meat, skin, fat, organ meats, etc. and
they have a short transit time (about 4 hours) so need a very nutritious
meal very regularly.  Those are the basics.
 
Christine, your poem made me smile
[Posted in FML issue 4579]