Hi all.  Just a couple things I wanted to touch on today.
 
Gatorade--My ferrets love the stuff also, particularly if it has ice in
it and is in a hooman glass ;)  They are partial to the light blue kind,
don't recall the name.  My only concern would be the amount of salt/sugar
in it.  If anyone knows anything about the amounts found in Gatorade and
whether or not there is a reasonable amount that can be given I'd like to
know especially for when they get dehydrated from being ill.  I know I
should ask my vet but I never remember and when I do it's 2am heh.
 
Polecats in TX--I spoke with a friend of mine in San Antonio today and
she said that she had recently visited the San Antonio Zoo.  Low and
behold they had Polecats!  Ones you could pet and give kisses to!  Makes
me wish I still lived there, I would love to go see my babies cousins.
Though, I might get the overwhelming urge to bop the zoo employee on the
head and steal them!  My friend said she told the woman running the show
that her friend (me) "has several of these guys at home." And the woman
said, "Probably not this kind exactly."  And my friend said, "Oh yah they
look just like them."  ROFL That is so funny I love it.  She said they
looked just like my dearly departed Booger boy.  I had seen a children's
program a few years ago on Animal Planet that had a segment on Polecats
and indeed they looked just like Booger, dark sable, only bigger.
 
Plexiglass gate--I'm sorry I don't have any plans made up for this but I
can give you the jist of ours.  My first one that I had was just a sheet
of plexiglass.  I measured the width of the door frame, from the piece
of wood that is directly in front of the door itself when it is closed,
usually it is the peice that sticks out the farthest of all the wood in
the frame. (I measured from just behind that peice)  I had the plexiglass
cut to the height I wanted and width + 1 cm.  By having it just slightly
wider then the opening I was able to wedge it in the door frame without
anything holding it in place (it bowed out slightly).  This worked for
a very long time but then General Tavi, genius that she is, figured out
that she could sometimes get a claw under the plexiglass and if she
pulled hard enough she could pop it out.  I swear they eat cans of
spinach late at night, you wouldn't believe some of the He-Man things
they do.
 
So now we have nailed a piece of wood (painted so it "blends in"),
infront of that piece of doorframe I mentioned above, on either side of
the frame with a gap to slide the plexiglass in between.  At the bottom
I have plastic carpet protector, to protect where they like to dig, with
another piece of wood on top of the plastic wedged in the door frame to
keep smart ferret claws from getting under the plexiglass and holding it
up while the others make a break for it.  If I can find my digital camera
I'll send in a link to a photo so you get a better idea.  But since you
don't want to put holes in the wood the first option might be better for
you.
 
However, I do have more ideas on the matter.  I don't know how well this
might work but..  Perhaps if you took a peice of wood the height of the
plexiglass and cut a slot into it big enough for the glass to slide in
then attached the wood to the frame with some clamps on either side you
could save your doorframe from damage.
 
OR get a baby gate and measure the width of it in place (you will
probably need 2 individual pieces of plexiglass for this as the gates I'm
familiar with have a metal fastener that gets in the way of one solid
sheet sliding in well) and have plexiglass cut for that width.  Set up
the gate so that the side the ferrets are on is the side that has the arm
that holds it in place so that you can slide the plexiglass in and they
have nothing to climb.
 
LOL I took so long writing this the next issue is out and Kerri and Chana
beat me to it!  Ah well you get my 2 cents anyway!
 
DOOKS!
Laura
[Posted in FML issue 4302]