Hello, I made an interesting discovering on the subject of scratching fits Last fall I plucked 3 of my 4 ferrets of almost all of their shedding fur. My 4th was being less than cooperative so I let her keep a bit more of her coat than the others. 2 observations My heavily plucked furballs developed the most amazing winter coats--very lush and uniform My least plucked went through that almost ugly new coat transition phase But most importantly----the heavily plucked 3 have next to no freak out scratching episodes, truly as a matter of fact my one guy Ferris was so good about my plucking him, he almost lost his entire summer coat and he never has the scratches, it is very interesting. where as the 4th is constantly at her coat. So I have decided (for me anyway) that there is a real connection between loss of old coat (spring/fall) & growth of new in terms of the intense scratches. Mary Ann [Posted in FML issue 4404]