I am new to this list, but have had ferrets for the past 5 years or so.
This may have been mentioned before sorry if it has.
 
I live in NC and in the winter of 95 I moved into a house with my two frist
furry bandits Snarf and Snarfette.  It was and big old and roomy house with
hard wood floors and it stayed farily cold and they loved it.
 
And wwhen spring rolled around they sheded there winter coats, as I was
brushing them I noticed that they had a few fleas, my roomates had a cat so
I figured that they had just picked up a few.  I bathed them and de-fleaed
them and though nothing else.  And soon after that I went in the hosiptal
and could not see my bestest friends for two weeks.
 
My roommates feed and clean the litter box while I was gone, and when I got
home I was still recovering and did not have the strength to take groom them
like I should have.
 
About two days after i got home I woke up and found Sanrfette dead in her
hammock and Snarf bearly able to move.  I grabed them both and rushed to the
vet, well the vet I had been seeing and she was really good had quit seeing
ferrets, so I rushed around about an hour and half until I found one that
would.  The took Snarf and said they would do what they could, at this point
I had no idea what had killed Snarfette.  Much to my horror I got a call
latter that night that Snarf had died too.  I asked from what the vet(who
had worked on Snarf for several hours) said it was flea anmiena.  I could
belive it and could not firuge where all the fleas had come from.  I took
both of my childern hame and buried them and planted some wild flowers over
them.
 
When I questioned my roommates about it I found out that the person who
lived in my part o the house before me had a large dog and had not taken
that good of care of it.
 
And from my vet I found out that fleas love the carkes in hardwood floors
and that there eggs would last though the winter.
 
So all of you out there in ferret land please beware of fleas even if you do
not take your little ones out side or own dogs and cats.  I do not want any
one to go through the hard ache I did.
 
Now the good point is that I become a mini-rescuse shelter in the Raliegh NC
area( the Spca and animal control have a bad habit of just putting them to
sleep, seems that there insurance does not cover ferrets) so I got them to
call me when ever they had a ferret and I would coome and get it.  And in no
time at all I had 12 of the little guys in one mulit-story 6x5 cage.  I
found home as far away as Maryland and Chaicgo.  And I kept 5.
 
I lost my frist little one to make way for many more I could help.  The
Creator works in strange ways and I have to belive that somewhere in the
afterlife that there are ferrets peeking out from under the sofa and
stealing the romote and hiding some ones slipers.
 
                                    Peace to all
                                       E. Nash
 
PS please excuse the spelling four years of college did nothing to improve
it. :-}
[Posted in FML issue 1547]