Hi there! I posted the message below a few days ago with no response. Just wanted to make sure it came through ok. Maybe it was too long and nobody bothered reading..sorry. Will be getting out 2 new adopted fuzzies around Father's Day weekend and was hoping for some advice on making their trasition as easy as possible. Thanks! Hi Everyone! I've been enjoying the list for a few weeks already now and would like to introduce myself. My hubby, 13 year old son, and I live in north Georgia. We are owned by 4 Labradors, 2 ferrets, 3 goats, and an assortment of tropical fish. I thought this would be a good time for introductions, because we are adopting the two fuzzes that (FlowerDog, sorry I forgot your real name), posted about a few days ago! We emailed the family having to give Ricky and Trixie up, because of allergies and a big move across country. I figured that the ferts would end up being a billion miles away from us the way they usually are when you want to help over the internet, but wrote to them anyway, because I've also been frequenting the ferret message boards and have seen many people looking to adopt. Anyway...it ends up they are in GA also!! We've emailed back and forth with details and have decided that this little 8 year old sable boy and 6 year old albino girl have touched our hearts and will have to come and be a part of our family! We can't wait to see them! Our ferrets are Rocky, a sable male who's about 5 years old that we bought from a local petstore when he was about a year old, and Glacier, I think he is what I've heard called a marked white, who is HUGE and about 5 years old also. A friend of ours found Glacier walking around in her subdivision and could not find his owners so we adopted him. We had just lost a little female sable named Chloe that we had adopted. Which brings up something I wanted to say to anyone who uses baby gates in there home with ferrets. Chloe was an escape artist. She was so tiny she could squeeze through the tiniest little places and we found her out a couple of times at night and were trying to Chloe proof their cage. One morning we woke up and she was not there again. We looked all over and my son found her caught in a baby gate. This was one of those gates with the little (about 2 inch) square mesh made of metal with a white plastic coating over it. She had tried to go through one square and when she couldn't get her little bottom through she turned and tried to go back through the one just above it. When we found her she was still just barely breathing and I tried to carefully cut her out, but she was blue and took her final little breaths as I held her in my arms and called the vet. We were just heartbroken and I wanted to kick myself. Why didn't I get up a little earlier, why didn't I make SURE she could not get out of her cage, why had I ferret proofed the whole house and not realized the very gate I thought would keep her safe and out of the upstairs rooms could end up being deadly?? Needless to say...we no longer own that baby gate. Rocky just adored her and they played so well together...he was heartbroken and we thought a new playmate might help. However,Glacier was not playful at all. We kept thinking he probably missed maybe another ferret or person from his former home and that he'd hopefully begin to be comfortable with us. Well...we've had this fella for a little over a year now and just in the past two weeks has he come out of his shell. We were amazed and jumped for joy when our Glacier started acting like a ferret finally. He still is not a wild man like Rocky, but we have witnessed war dances out of him and he wrestles around with Rocky all the time now. Glacier is kindof a nipper. He's never bitten to bring blood, but just kinda snaps at you. You can't hodd his face up to your face...he gets very uncomfortable and nips at your face. I was kinda thinking maybe it was a learned response kind of thing. I could picture him maybe around small kids who were kind of rough and probably unsupervised while handling him. He might have learned that was the way he got down when he didn't want to be held. He seems to be trusting us more and more each day. We've just treated him very gently. Another thing is that I'm beginning to wonder if he is deaf. We've tried some some little test, but can't tell for sure yet. We love our two beautiful fur babies! Some final arrangements for their travel here must still be made, but I think they should be here next weekend! I'd like to hear all the advice from you fine, knowledgeable, ferret folks out there. I'm concerned about the oldest ones age, although I've been told I'd never know he was 8 if she hadn't told me, because he is very playful and has never had any health problems. I want to make them as comfortable in their new home as I possibly can. Are there special things I can do to avoid as much stress as possible? Anything y'all can tell me would be greatly appreciated! Well..I apologize for such a long read...guess I rambled on a little bit. Looking forward to reading more ferret mail each day! Will post an email as soon as our new fuzzies arrive....can't wait! Take care everyone! Big hugs from us! Angela [Posted in FML issue 3078]