Hi all! This is my first post to the list... have been on for about two weeks and enjoyed the amount of info passed back and forth here. I'm a ferret rookie.. with some common sense I hope, and I seem to have stumbled onto smething that helped with blackheads! If the hairloss on the tail isnt symptomatic of some other problem and the blackheads are clearly visible, I seem to have come up with something that worked well ! In a two month period, my little guy with the blackhead tail wentfrom having a very sparse tail COVERED with blackheads to a full bushy tail with NO blackheads at all. If you can get hold of a shampoo for dogs and cats called Veterinarians Best Nature's Salon Strawberries & Oatmeal Shampoo ( distributed SantaBarbara CA), it seems to do an incredible job without the chemical harshness of Stridex Pads etc. Maybe any oatmeal based shampoo would do the same? I washed Barnums TAIL ONLY 3 times a week using this shampoo.. paid attention to it when i was brushing him too (all four of my furkids get a good once over with a boar bristle brush once a day )... and it turned things around in no time! Ingredients in this shampoo are as follows: Micronized Oatmeal, Vitamin E, AloeVera, Panthenol (VitaminB-5), Yucca, Chamomile, Calendula, Lavender, natural fragrance. Natural ingredients and a real blessing to this little guy! Just to try it out again... another of my little girls had a few on the TIP of her tail when she came to my house.. so tried it with her... no hair loss.. and blackheads GONE in a week and a half so there's something to this maybe? Worked for Barnum and Kami thats for sure! Saying hi, bye and goodmorning now from Calgary, Alberta, Canada Valerie from Canada (so as not to be confused with t'other Val who posts here too lol) (and Bailey, Barnum, Kami and Yoko too!) [Posted in FML issue 3951]