Hi I'm back again with a correction and some more info on my furry friends.
By the way carpet sharks! what an excellent way of referring to our friends
in.
 
>one sobel male  [sable? crl]
Sorry I didn't have access to my English literature on the subject so I
took a chance on a spelling that is used here in Sweden for the fur in
fur-coats.
It should be sable as you pointed out, but what is crl? could someone
inform me by email?
 
         Since we have the exhibition soon I wanted to join the list as
soon as possible, to be able to soak up what information I could before
then.
For this reason I wrote a short presentation of my furry friends shooting
from the hip so to speak.
 
Now I will present my friends a little closer:
When we (me and my girlfriend) decided we wanted to bring a ferret in to
our lives we were at first both lucky and unlucky. We were lucky because we
found an excellent home to get our ferret from.
        In Sweden the best way to get a good ferret is to get it from a
family i e some ferret owner who desides to take one offspring from his/her
favourite pet. What is the correct word for that I wouldn't call it a farm.
 
We were unlucky because the whole brood (litter??) died because of some
error with the vaccination. I think it had something to do with them
getting it to fast after separation from their mother. Anyway Irene was a
good first contact with ferret owners and she helped us through her
contacts to get our first jill Shira.
 
         Shira was born in Mars 1991 and she's been with us since then.
She's our little angel, but only towards the family. The last exhibition
she was disqualified for biting the judge (just nipping but anyway BAD
GIRL!).
She's really a little thief once she took an envelope containing 700 Skr
(about $100) and we found it well hidden in the bottom of her cage.
Can anyone confirm that the word ferret comes from the latin word for
"little thief"? I've heard it said somewhere.
         Charmed by Shira we soon decided that we wanted a companinon for
her and then Tor (Swedish for Thor the thunder god) entered our family. Tor
is a silver mitt , at least I think that's the right word for his coloring.
 
In Sweden this coloring is called tomte (Swedish word for Santa Claus) and
he really look's elegant in his beard and white gloves, that's probably why
he's so successful att begging (He's so cute =-). Otherwize he's the calm
one in the background. Isn't it amazing how different personalities you can
find in ferrets, they really become distinct  members of the familly.
         Since Irene had been such a good support to us as newbies, and her
ferrets are so fine we could not resist buying Bilbo when her jill had a
second brood (??) in August. Bilbo is our cuddliest ferret and he's so
kind. For a while he was a lot to cuddle too, over 2 kg in weight. But this
year he was in heat (Is that the word for the male too?) from Mars to
August and lost a lot of weight and for a while he was down to only 1 kg.
Does anyone know if we can expect him to get as large ever again? we miss
him so :(
         Bilbo is the only one we havn't spayed (or the male eqivalent if
there is a difference). Our first cristmas together the three furries all
got in to heat at the same time (Isn't that unusually early), and we had
great trouble in keeping them all separated all the time. After this Shira
and Tor got their treatment so we didn't have to keep the boys separated
from each other, and from  Shira.
Bilbo is worth keeping fertile for a while, because he's such a cuddly one
and we really look forward to see some offspring after him. Besides from
being cuddly and large he's also the national champion in ferret racing
from two exhibitions in a row. He wasn't fat just large =-)
         Now I think I've tired you enough with my bad treatment of the
English language. I hope you will apologise for any errors since it really
isn't my native tongue. At least the spell check program has corrected my
spelling.
 
 
 
Jonas Nygards                   work (+13 281789)
University at Linkoping         home (+13 212226)
S-58183 Sweden
 
[Posted in FML issue 0621]