Hello Tracy Kilmer of F R O S, and to everybody on the net who may have
info.
 
So happy to hear you have a source of these harnesses.  The ones I have are
10 years old and are wearing out and I would very much like to get a bunch
more so I can stake my ferrets out in the digging grounds without the worry
that some of my harnesses might come apart, since they are so very old.
They are English-made.
 
I recently picked up 5 leather figure 8's at Animal Talk pet store, but
unfortunately the leather is much too thick and that makes it difficult
to thread the body strap through the last half of the buckle.  I soaked
the leather in olive oil to make it more supple, but still that didn't
make it easy enough to use.  I guess I'm stuck with them now.
 
Would you be so kind as to measure the thickness of the leather strap, its
width and its length and how many holes in the strap and how far are they
from the bitter end.  (The bitter end is the end opposite the buckle or
the loose end, as with a piece of line aboard ship it is the end of a line
you're working with, as the inboard end of the line of a ship's anchoring
cable - isn't that right Bryan?)
 
Since I post to the digging grounds up to 14 ferrets at one time and with
the ferrets being of different sizes I find I need the larger sized
harnesses with a very large number of holes in the body strap so that any
harness I pick can be fitted to any sized ferret very quickly.  Obviously,
owners of single ferrets or two or more ferrets of similar sizes don't have
the same requirements of a harness that I do here at the funky ferret farm.
 
Please measure the thickness, width, and length of the leather body strap.
The dimensions I'm working with here now are as follows:
 
Thickness: 3/32" (same as 1/16 + 1/32") or if it's easier for you to
measure: 2 mm.
 
Width: 3/8" or 9 mm.
 
Length: 20" not including the buckle.
 
Thanks to all.  Edward Lipinski
 
PS.  Yesterday was fascinated watching my former pet, a very clever crow
sneaking up behind a lazy ferret and figuring out how to steal, bit by
little bit, the pieces of ferret chow left over from the ferret's earlier
feeding outside on the grass.  The crow was very apprehensive but it did
come to within some 3-inches of the ferret's nose to steal a piece.  The
ferret, I think, was watching the crow through half-closed eyes, as if it
were sleeping.  Me thinks that one of these days that ferret will have some
feathers in its mouth.  Better look out Mrs. Crow!  (Or is it Mr. Crow?)
[Posted in FML issue 2697]