No doubt I can agree with what some of the shelters said about getting no profits. I don't know what profits are either! I have 26 ferrets in my shelter at this time. I have probably taken in at least 30 ferrets over the last two years and as much as I hate to say it I have only adopted out about four to six ferrets in the past year. Do you have any idea how much money it costs me to buy VERY GOOD ferret foods for all of them each month? 90 pounds is a lot of food. I know all the other shelters around the world know exactly what I mean. This doesn't include buying enough Hairball Remedy, Ferretone, Ferretvite, and Ferret snacks every month to take care of all of them or buying enough GOOD litter each month to clean my litter boxes out everyday. Can you imagine just how many bags of litter I go through each month in order for me to keep 14 litter boxes cleaned and filled each day? It doesn't include buying toys, tubes, hammocks, litter boxes, water bottles, food bowls, and everything else I have to buy when something wears out. I have cages that are absolutely falling apart. I do mean falling apart because during our move we loaded all the cages up in the back of our truck and tied them down really good and then at 65 mph down the road they all blew out and were bent, crushed, and banged up! Now all of my poor ferrets have to live in half-assed cages until I can come up with several thousand dollars just to buy all new ones. Hell I haven't even mentioned the vet bills yet. I owe one vet over $300 and another vet $100 right now at this moment. I also owe a very kind shelter (she knows who she is) around $300 too. I have owed this shelter owner for about a year now. This is just the tip of the iceberg! I also have 2 Adrenal Ferrets and one with Insulinoma. I have only gotten about $100 worth of donations in the past two years. People want to dump their ferrets on me all the time but they don't want to help me out. It is really hard. I would give anything in this world to have both of these vets paid off and to have about $1000 extra in my vet account so that when one of my ferrets falls ill I can just head to the vet at the blink of an eye and not have to worry about having enough money to cover just one visit at a time. I get up every morning and head straight to the ferret room to check every ferret praying that none of them are sick for fear that if they are I might not be able to take them to the vet this time. It really sucks. If there are shelters out there in the world that are actually making a profit then I wish they would contact me and fill me in on their secrets so that I can make a little cash myself so that I can afford those cages that I so desperately need and afford the vet care my ferrets all deserve. Life as a shelter is hard. I do it for the love of the ferrets because there are no other reasons. I live it and I breathe it. Thank you. Michelle Little Orphans Ferret Shelter & Rescue http://www.homestead.com/littleorphansferrets/ [Posted in FML issue 3192]