Hello to all, I'm VERY wiped out and ready to go to bed. Now for one of the worst possible stories in my ferret history so far. My dad had let his and my ferrets out for the day. He has 4 and I have 2. Well he's gotten into the (NOW) bad habit of trusting them to stay in their ferret proofed room. He had let them out at 10 a.m. and by the time I got back home at 5:30 p.m. they were still out. I was lounging by the couch when I heard a sneezing (ferret) coming from the vent VERY close by. For some reason, I figured that it was possibly a mouse (I know, what was I thinking???!!!) We have been having troubles with mice latley. By the time my dad had gotten home at 6:30 p.m. and went to go put the ferrets away, Johnnie (his) was missing. We searched the 2 lounge chairs, in desk drawers, plastic bags, closet, entertainment center and anywhere else possible. I had made a mention to him that I had heard a noise coming from the vents and that we should check in the basement. Him thinking that she would come out of a chair checks the room again in a half hour only to come up empty handed. He goes to pull the computer desk back from the wall and finds that Johnnie had PULLED off the vent from the wall and scratched her way into the venting systems. Thinking the worst in that Johnnie was electrocuted by making her way into the furnace we made our way down into the basement with flashlight and a bag of treats in hand. We started to knock on the vent after checking the furnace (which LUCKLY WASN'T ON!) Didn't take but 2 minutes before I thought about taking the vent cover off the side of the vent and looking in there. We banged and stuck the flashlight to see if we could find something. We started shaking treats when we see movement in one of the insulated plastic vent (thing) that connects with the main vent. It took her awhile to make her way through but when my dad pulled her out, she's was dirty and shaking. Poor girl... It was into the cage and she headed STRAIGHT to the hammock where everyone kinda checked her out to she where she had been before she was out like a light. We were lucky that the other 5 didn't follow her, they were all sacked up in the toy box. After she was put away, it was nail after nail back into the vent on the wall and we made sure it was secure this time. I will not EVER leave them unsupervised again. The strange thing is we have done this countless times and had NO problems. I wonder what made her decided to do it this time? We will check on her progress tommorow just to make sure she is doing well. We were very upset for awhile. Oh yeah, and coming out from the basment, I stepped on a plastic thing, with sharp type nailish things coming out of it which jammed in my foot. (Sorry for not being able to describe stuff very well!!!!!!!!) My foot still hurts and I do have to wobble on it, but I will live. Anyway, my arms are really tired and I NEED to get to bed as it is 12:08 a.m. Monday morning and I need to be up in 5 hours to go to work!!!! Didn't realize it was that late GOODNESS!!!!!!! Good luck to all those with sick fuzzies!!! Alison~ George and Grizzly Ken and Doreen~ Laser, Stevie, Doc and the once missing Johnnie [Posted in FML issue 3928]