I bought my ferret from Petco too. She was EXACTLY 8 weeks when I got her. The store I got her from knew NOTHING about ferrets. Had no idea what to cage them in, or what shavings to use, etc. They tried to get me to buy wood shavings, and as I understood it, that isn't a good idea. But the home the ferrets had there was ok. It was an aquarium with a few toys and one hammock, for 5 or 6 of them, with wood shavings. They were feeding the ferrets actual ferret foods, ( I watched them several times feed the ferrets and saw the bag) I am pretty sure that they are so unexperianced with ferrets that they don't even know that ferrets would eat cat food or could eat it (mine will eat anything if you let it) ... thank God they don't know that. I am confident that if they knew that they that ferrets would even eat cat food, they no doubtly would try to save money and feed them cheap cat food. I go in there frequently and as much as I hate to support them, I will be buying a boy from there sometime soon. Don't ask or flame me over not adopting from a shelter, as I have small kids *remember?*. I called the Greater Chicago Ferret shelter and explained my situation, and it didn't matter, (they still wouldn't even give me a chance to change their minds) so I have to buy mine outright from a store. I have four more years until my 2 year old is 6 and then I can adopt. But anyway, the ferrets in Petco in my town aren't mistreated, it's just that no one know ones a thing about them. And strangly enough, they aren't marshall farm ferrets. They have no dots in their ears, and the papers don't say anything about marshall farms. Isn't that strange? Jessica & Nikki [Posted in FML issue 3731]