Hi, all. I have a question for those of you with deaf ferrets. How in the world do you STOP THE SCREAMING?!?!?!?! About a month and a half ago, two ferrets were turned over to the animal hospital where I work. Of course, I had to take them home! (Yes, I do indeed have a big red S for Sucker on my forehead!) Anyway, they are about 10 months old, and very active. One is a sable with white feet (absolutely crazy!), and the other is a beautiful dark-eyed white. After a few days, we discovered that (surprise, surprise) he's deaf. Deaf as a post. Completely clueless if he doesn't see you come in. They are absolutely crazy, and have really brought new life to my other ferts. Especially my seven-and-a-half year old naked ferret with Lymphoma! Dervish (the sable) learned very quickly just how rough he could be with her, and she will actually wrestle with him for short periods! The problem is, they don't know when they should play, and when they should sleep. I've tried explaining to them that when it's light out, we play, and when it's dark out, we sleep. They just don't get it. It wouldn't be a problem, since the ferrets have their own room. (Yes, we actually moved into a bigger place just to have a room for the ferrets!) They aren't actually usually that noisy when they play. Well, they weren't. You see, Jasper (the DEW) is very vocal. VERY vocal. He doesn't just dook. He screeches and screams. I'm just now realizing how much. The first night after we moved them permanantly into the ferret room (they had been having supervised play in a different room with the others), I woke up at 2 AM to a lot of screeching. I went in there and sat with them until they settled down. Then, at 4 AM, I was jolted awake to an absolutely blood-curdling scream. It sounded like a small child being beaten! I went running into the ferret room to find Jasper and Tanner wrestling. They just looked up at me innocently. It happens now almost every night. I know it sounds funny, and it kind of is, but there's a problem. The ferret room buts up against another apartment. I don't know if anyone sleeps in that room, or if they can even hear the noise through the walls, but I don't want to disturb our neighbors. But I also don't want to start locking Jasper up at night again, either. That just doesn't seem fair to him, when he doesn't even know what he's doing. Does anyone have any suggestions about how I can stop, or at least lessen, the screaming? Bright Blessings, Becky with Twizzler, Tanner, Tinker, Jasper, and Dervish Missing Cinnamon, Coke, Pixie, Chitterbox, Kodi-Bear, and Yozum [Posted in FML issue 5225]