Someone asked if tucking a ball under the chest and scooting backward with
it, had significance.  This is the same maneuver used when they are digging
in a sand/rice/dirt box.  It's an instinctive action, the origin of which
was to back the dirt out of the burrow as it's enlarged.
 
Your ferret is just practicing, in case you ever get him a digging box!
I've noticed the ferrets most likely to scoot backward with a ball, are the
one's to spend the greatest amount of time running backward in the rice
box, endlessly scooping, as they whirl around and around the perimeter of
the box.
 
On another note... We had fish yesterday.  Not "we're having fish for
dinner tonight", but "here, I caught these fish, you want them"?  One of
our neighbors was fishing, and had caught 2 junk fish, which he said I
could feed the heron.
 
Always eager to provide my ferrets with a new experience, I put the fish
down on the floor, on a piece of newspaper.  All the ferrets sniffed, but
only one showed a real interest.  Muffet began licking the fish.  Ooooooo,
yucky.  She really wanted to lick all the slime off them.  Not wanting this
to continue, and having no heron waiting for them, I tossed the fish into
the ferrets refrigerator.  So much for fish!  One last bit - next morning,
someone had peed, right where one of the fishes tails hung off the paper!
 
Georgia - the left coast one...
[Posted in FML issue 2751]