>to rebecca stout: >i also agree with you concerning DFS and deafness in ferrets. i think they >are related. i have 2 ferts, and only the one who is deaf does the "i am >dead" trick. i guess its because they can't be woken up with noise, but i >would have thought that they would react to other stimuli (me licking their >nose and usually they hate that). > >any reactions to that folks?>> Ya I know, I have tough time figuring it out. You would think their sense of touch, movement, and smell would be a bit heightened as it seems to be in humans that are deaf. Mine seem to sleep through pungent odors put to their nose while my hearing ferrets do not. As far as movement and them not waking up, the only thing I can think of is perhaps the vestubular system may be underdeveloped or malformed. Then that would make movement (trying to wake them up) a bit off or dulled. However I tend to doubt that as they seem to be just as coodinated and balanced and nimble as an average ferret. I wish I had more experience. My deaf girl is very adept, but my two deaf boys bang their heads into everything. So I'm left confused as ever. I am thinking of compiling a questionaire for the FML on deaf ferrets and experiences with them. There are so many things we are finding in common yet not in "the books" and it would be interesting to see how common some of these things are. **So I'm putting out the word... any questions you would like asked... send them to me via email and I'll start making the questionaire. I will have the questionaire broken down into congenital deafness, and acquired deafness. I may break it down more so that deafness caused by gentomycin, and the like is not grouped with deafness caused by waardenburg syndrome. Wolfy Please visit: http://www.geocities.com/wolfysluv/ for information on deafness and ferrets: http://www.geocities.com/wolfysluv/deaf.html take a peek at upcomming "so you have allergies": http://www.geocities.com/wolfysluv/allergies.html [Posted in FML issue 3080]