Howdy, Y'all...Mac from Berkeley again.
 
Re: Kentucky Jennifer's weasel weight watching
 
 Supposedly the little bastards can gain thirty to forty percent more
weight for winter if triggered by changes in temperature and photoperiod.
Doubling sounds like something else...Maybe Dr. Williams knows what.
Don't panic though; a friend of mine, spike, was almost ten months or so
when his weight went wacko, and he's still pretty darn healthy.
 
Re: Jon Anne's I.D. Ideas
 
 If there's anyone on from around Utah, i read a clipping by one of the
Utah Ferret Association that referred to one county's insistance on
implanted microchips for identification. Is this true? Is it practical?
Is it expensive? Is it humane?
 The lab animal handbooks here at cal say that ear notches, tattoos, and
even leg banding aren't really good, so again, i suppose we should ask
the Doctor: What's a fool proof way of affixing I.D. short of coping them
with dog tags?
 
Re: Smuggling
 
 Needles is an especially bad place to bring them in...Ferrets Anon. says
that little munchkins are routinely suffocated in garbage bags. If you're
busted in state, however, the CDFA runs an underground railroad to evac
fuzzies to safe houses over the border. I've already made arrangements to
relocate mine if fish and game gets nosey.
 Anyhow, why smuggle? Once you're in contact with the resistance, you can
usually adopt a fitch who really needs a home.
 By the way, never underestimate the gullibility of cogs in the
machine... i flew into San Fran on a to-remain-nameless airline after
showing up with a caged pet (gee, did i really forget to correct the
impression that i had a really big rat? I wondered why no one looked inside
the sleeping box) as carry-on. Yeah, i had to raise
hell and pay some fees, but the end result is that buckhead, the weeny
wolverine, never left my sight. I was all set to play ignorant tourist if
busted, and had friends in orlando ready to recieve my wittle weasel in
the event of interception, but i guess i just lucked out.
 
                                        Peace and love,
                                         Mac and Buckminster
 
P.S.
 About weasel behaviour...Some dudes, i guess in wyoming, wanted to see
if they could use furo as a equivalent to nigripes in behavioural
studies. They found that, for all intents and purposes, domestic ferret
courtship behaviour was identical to black-footed ferret courtship
behaviour. (With the minor difference that domestic jills are more
liberated, or at least more assertive when, it comes to lovin')
 Now, we all now that the black-footed ferret is a lot closer
(genetically, not geographically) to the siberian steppe polecat than to
our household hellians, but apparently they've all been reading the same
book of love.
[Posted in FML issue 0987]