I sympathize with you Will.  I once had a ferret kit who's only pleasure in
life was biting the crap out of me.  The problem with Claudia was, she was
left in a cage with other ferrets for the first three months of her life
with next to no human contact.  It seems that ferrets can bite each other
very hard and not even feel it, but our skin just isn't as tough.
 
To stop Claudia's biting, I would promptly pick her up and hold her.
(scruffing only seemed to make it worse) Reason told me that the one thing
a ferret hates most in the world is being made to be still when they are
all turned on.
 
The next thing I did, when holding alone wouldn't work, was to force her to
be held until she recognized my dominance.  I know I'll be flamed for this
next part, but here goes anyway.  The first time I forced her to be held,
she bit me until my hands were bleeding profusely.  I was determined to
break this behavior, so every time she would bite me, I would pinch her.
I was crying the whole time this was going on, but I knew that if I didn't
break her of this, she would eventually be put to sleep for it or have a
life spent in a cage.  The areas that got most attention were her ears and
the sides of her flabby little gut area, not the middle of her gut because
I was afraid of hurting important organs.
 
This went on for an hour.  I'm not exaggerating, it was literally an hour
before she stopped.  When I finally put her in her cage, my hands were a
mess.  She didn't bite anyone for about three days.  She played nice with
me and my husband and she got treats.  One day she got all turned on again
and bit my foot.  When I say bit, I mean she sunk her teeth down and shook
her head violently.  I might have even understood if we were playing, but
she just walked up and sunk in with no provocation.  So I picked her up and
pinched her every time she bit me again.  This time it was only 20 minutes
before she stopped.  My only wounds were scratches.
 
After this last episode, she bit no one for the rest of her life.  Again,
I'm not exaggerating.  I was always careful to watch her around strangers
but she never showed any sign of being that aggressive again.  She was by
far the funniest ferret I have known.  I feel totally in love with her and
I miss her terribly.
 
Perhaps someone else can give you a better alternative.  Perhaps your Angel
isn't as bad a my Claudia.  I don't recommend this method to you if you
feel any apprehension at all with doing it.  As I write this, I fear that
it will be misconstrued by someone as permission to abuse.  These animals
were not put on this Earth to be abused, but they do have to be able to
live with us peacefully.
 
Let me know if I can be of any help to you.
Britta
[Posted in FML issue 2519]