1.) Dear Kim, and any others who may be treating ferret grub to
dessication/freezing, please could you tell us just how you do this?
Is special equipment required? After dessication/freezing how long
can such treated grub be stored, assumedly at low temps, before it
is reconstituted with HOH or some other fluids?

After a ferret feeds on this reconstituted grub, is it OK to call such
a ferret a Gruber, as in BIG? Sounds reasonable to me...how about you?

2.) And for my second request, I should like to ask any and all
ferreters whose ferret is domiciled within ten miles of our Ferrets
North West Foundation facility, located on Mercer Island Washington
(that's just east of Seattle) a favor of significant import to us here
in our research program. And this request is for dried ferret feces in
quantities of five gallons or so to be picked up by yours truly within
twelve hours of notification of availability from your location. The
dry or near dry ferret feces will be loaded into five gallon, sterile
plastic buckets with a snap-on lids. Coincident with the first pickup
of the dried or near dried ferret boluses I shall leave with the donor
a clean five gallon bucket into which more boluses may be loaded and
stored until the second and later pickups.

3.) And for the third request I should like to ask for documentation,
again from ferreters, who provide drinking water to their ferrets from
cage-attached water bottles, especially when the larger 28 ounce rabbit
bottles are used and that such ferrets receive no fresh water from any
other source. Of great importance to us is the diet of the caged ferret
during days and weeks (months and years?) when their HOH consumption is
being recorded. We can all pretty much agree that a ferret fed a dry
kibble may likely consume more water than a similar sized ferret who
has a semi-liquid or full liquid diet, all other conditions being
nearly equal.

The 28 Oz rabbit water bottle is filled to overflowing (about 32 Oz)
and the nozzle is screwed onto the top of the bottle. The filled bottle
is inverted, the ball valve at the end of the nozzle is depressed and
the bottle squeezed to express enough water to develop a vacuum
internal of the bottle, such that the nozzle will not drip unless the
ferret's tongue is depressing the ball valve. The volume of water is
then about 28 Oz or maybe a little more and the bottle remains inverted
outside the ferret's cage with the nozzle internal such that access by
the ferret is unrestricted. Glued to the outside of the bottle is an
adhesive paper onto which the dates of each filling of the water bottle
are recorded in permanent ink. Then when the adhesive paper is filled
with replenishment dates these dates are recorded in the journal for
each of our fourteen ferrets and one two-year old crow who are being
monitored thusly.

I realize that this third request for help from the ferreters of the
world is begging for an awful lot and I would hope that each of you
would give this appeal your earnest consideration and full cooperation.
I thank you for reading this post and look forward with anticipation 
o your kind thoughts and aid.

Edward Lip In Ski
Ferret Endowment for Research, Rehabilitation, Education and Training
Society, North West Foundation.
F.E.R.R.E.T.S., N.W. Foundation is a 501(c)3 org under the supervision
of the National Heritage Foundation, Falls Church, VA 22044 nhf.org .

Then there are the words of that renowned Polish philosopher, Velcro 
Adhesioninski, who says, Ve must stick together.

[Posted in FML 6071]