Your post was EXCELLENT! Yes, vet care is legal to provide for ferrets in California and California vets can be found by using numerous resources. http://www.ferretnews.org/clinic.html http://www.ferretsanonymous.com/medical.html More generally: You can find one in Miamiferret.org/fhc http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/ another in the Reference Shelf of the Files section in http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth and links to some others in http://www.ferretcongress.org if the others didn't give you enough options to get you started Last week I wound up in many back and forth posts with someone there who needed to provide vet care but was not doing so; sadly, there are always some people like that anywhere -- either trying to skip vet care, afraid of medical professionals, impoverished, or sometimes (and this is the one that bugs me) belonging to the rare subset that is just trying to get attention by saying things. On the various health lists and general ferret lists we encounter each too often. I have no idea what the situation is with the poster. Maybe someone even made up a story to get that person's attention. It IS dangerous to give meds without prior vet assessment and approval, and certainly we have all read of too many who died as a result of being given human meds, both prescription and over the counter ones. Also, remember that controlling a symptom differs greatly from controlling the disease. In relation to melatonin at least the mechanism for fur re-growth is different from the one for better controlling the triggers for adrenal growth and its complications. This links to info about a fur and wool industry study: http://ferrethealth.org/archive/browse.php?msg=SG16864 How long have we had ferrets: something along the line of 25 years, I think, working from the state permits. We first got a ferret because Steve thought that i wanted one and I thought that he wanted one, so we each insisted for the sake of the other from a stand-point of love and then we found that we loved the ferrets, too. (In fact, for our 25th wedding anniversary we got a silver mitt to share and love and had a Chinese meal because our reception was at a friend's Chinese restaurant. We're pretty romantic.) Our ferrets usually like the wrapping as much as their gifts because we got for things like tissue paper that they love to play with. We are FAMILY. I have no idea how many hours we spend, because there is all that loving stuff on and off all the time, too. I joined the FML because it was being created. First there was just rec.pets and there were very few places on the internet: a few labs, a few schools, parts of the military, and that was almost it. Then a few folks had home computers that were on; ours was 22 years ago but we were on through a lab before then for a couple of years, and Steve was on through another lab in '76 (in fact he and a friend were the ones who wrote the gateway that connected Theorynet to CSNET which was already connected to ARPANET, and you had to write the path, not just the address back then. Back to ferret lists: As numbers grew the lists became more specialized. When we began being harassed Chris Lewis began the FML and ran it for something like 5 years after which Bill Gruber became the moderator for all the time since. I guess I have been around ferrets and have read internet posts for longer than some FML people have been alive, which feels pretty weird. Even worse than bickering I dislike flame baiting when people get on with stories TRYING to create trouble for all. Some people actually consider that to be sport and make up stories to do it. [See later for more background about the following paragraph. BIG] Poor Hubble is still shaky and clingy, and Hilbert is guarding me. The girls are calmer. Fires and smoke are no fun. Compared to one of our elderly downstairs neighbors they are calm, though, but that it easy to do. Thank goodness we didn't burn down (burn up?) like a nearby building did a couple of months ago (fireplace chimney for that one). Too much smoke too many times (3 now) since the year began... -- Sukie (not a vet, and not speaking for any of the below in my private posts) Recommended health resources to help ferrets and the people who love them: Ferret Health List http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth FHL Archives http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ AFIP Ferret Pathology http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html Miamiferrets http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/ International Ferret Congress Critical References http://www.ferretcongress.org [Posted in FML issue 5220]