Perhaps I'm sending this a day early, but with all the Happy Anniversay wishes, it is appropriate. Thank you all so much for your wonderful 20th anniversary wishes, both public and private! Please remember I wasn't the moderator for all those 20 years. In fact, I wasn't even a subscriber until somewhere around issue 130. But above all, YOU all deserve a pat on the back. The FML would be nothing if not for ALL OF YOU. So, Happy 20th! Below is issue number 1 of the FML for your enjoyment, just slightly formatted to make it fit with the current FML format. Notice the posts seem familiar even today. Notice also, Sukie was there. The other very long term subscriber, Leonard Bottleman, just recently unsubscribed. The e-mail addresses have all changed, of course! Thanks all, Bill --------- FML Issue #1 --------- Date: Dec 21, 19:14 1987 The long-awaited ferret mailing list .... Sorry to take so long, but job changes and other such stuff made it rather difficult to find the time to get this rolling. Now things have stabilized, I'm finally able to do something with it. List of Charter Members of the Ferret Mailing List: evans@mhuxt (Steve & Sukie Crandall) [log in to unmask] (Tom Danisavich) [log in to unmask] (Susan A. Musil) tjs@tropix (Timothy J. Spires) davis@utx1 (Gary A. Davis) alan@sequent (Alan Gardiner) [log in to unmask] (Leonard Bottleman) [log in to unmask] (Shu-Ju Wang-Burgess) [log in to unmask] (Janet L. Crow) mnetor!uunet!vsedev!FMPMIS!scott (? - mail was mostly garbled) Adminstrivia I'm going to run this quite informally for the time being. For the time being, please mail any contributions to: ferret-list@spectrix I've included some useful paths in the trailer to this article. I will manually forward them back out. I will make some changes to automate this in the future, but not quite yet. Part of the reason why this isn't being automated now is the fact that of necessity one of the recipients has to be anonymous. Sounds wierd ... Unfortunately, this person has their ferret in a state where ferrets are (still) illegal and has asked me to not forward any identifying information. I've included his mail here, but have censored all identifying information. Each "posting" will have my address tacked on the end. I will endeaver not to modify any of the articles that are intended for redistribution except under extreme cases (3eg: 100K articles ;-), and will place my interjections, (if any) within square brackets. By way of breaking the ice, I've taken the liberty of remailing some of the messages I received as part of the first newsletter. ************************************* From: clewis@spectrix We have three ferrets: 1) Nicia - very small (overweight) sable femal, at least 2 years old. Indirectly from the pound. A real fighter (surviving several medical crises), and a real sweetheart. 2) Mocha - normal size (1 3/4 lb) sable female, obtained as a baby about 1 1/2 years ago. A sock eater (with feet inside). Have tried many thigns, simply can't stop her. 3) Toby - 3 lb. silver-mitt male, obtained as a baby. 9 mos. old. Big, stupid, and friendly lummox. Nicia and Mocha have very interesting tastes: peaches, mangoes , papayas, peanuts, Bailey's, potato chips, popcorn, soda-pop and raisons. They'll do ANYTHING for a raisin. We've discovered most fo these things by accident. We keep these "odd" treats to a minimum. ************************************* From: ihnp4!mhuxt!evans We have 2 ferrets at our place - Hjalmar (an exceedingly stupid but friendly 3 pound, 2 year old male), and Fritter (a very smart 2 pound 3 year old female). A few weeks ago we lost Hale to an illness that she had been fighting for several months -- she was over 7 (we have no idea what her real age was as she was purchased as an adult -- she may have been as old as 9). As only one room in our place is ferret-proofed our guys only have unsupervised access to that room. When we're gone they have a very large custom built ferret house that is enough of a den that they will stop any fighting they have been doing when they are put in it. We would be interested in a ferret mailing list. I know of one other ferret person on the net ihnp4!tektronix!videovax.tek.com!shuju (Shu-Ju Wang-Burgess). Her husband Mark is a vet. I won't go into any strange ferret stories -- yet. Steve & Sukie Crandall ihnp4!mhuxt!evans (in New Jersey) ************************************* From: <uunet!rutgers!psuvmb.bitnet!TAD> Hello, I've had my ferret for over a year now and I wouldn't trade him for anything. He's an albino, and about 3 years old. As to training him, my brother and I have managed to train him to come to the sound of a whistle. This was done by rewarding him with his favorite snack (cheerios) every time we would whistle. Now all you have to do is whistle and [Cheerios?!!! Well, whaddya know, it works!] he comes scampering from whereever in the house he is. We don't keep him caged up but he is pretty much restricted to my room unless we take him out to play. I'd love to hear any stories or info you've got on the critters and sign me up for the mailing list. thanks, tom danisavich @psuvmb.bitnet!tad ************************************* From: uunet!rutgers!oberon.usc.edu!oberon!suzy%acrux.usc.edu (Susan A. Musil) Organization: Univeristy of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Ferrets: Did someone say ferrets! I've thought about getting one of these for years, until I was told they weren't allowed in CA. For same! But, I'd still like to know 'bout 'em. Maybe one of these days I'll move... [log in to unmask]@oberon.usc.edu [log in to unmask] University of Spoiled Children Downtown Ellay [I heard about a ferret owner from Oregon moving to California and the authorities confiscated the animal. Fortunately, the owner was able to convince the authorities to allow him to send the ferret back to his parents in Oregon - the authorities were going to destroy it] ************************************ From: tjs@tropix Organization: GCA/Tropel Div. Rochester, NY 14450 Hello, I have be thinking about getting a ferret as a pet. I have not yet spent enough time looking into it though, perhaps the people on the net can help me. I am mostly interested in how trainable they are and how difficult to care for, cost is also a concern. Hopefully there will be more talk on the net about ferrets. work ihnp4!tropix!tjs home ihnp4!tropix!oregon!tjs ****************************** From: linus!harvard!utx1!davis (Gary A. Davis) Chris, I have a ferret (Gumby) and a kitten (Lassie). Gumby lives in the pantry when I am at work or at sleep and when in there, uses his litter box. When roaming around, he may not bother going to the box, he goes into a non-carpeted corner. He never goes on the carpet, always on the tile. At least it is easy to clean up. I have had him for over a year. I live in a condo townhouse. Occasionally, he escapes, a couple times overnight. So far, he has always found his way home. He used to escape through the dryer vent (chewed through the white plastic) in his pantry. I replaced it with a flexible metal vent but he eventually chewed through that too. I replaced it with a heavy PVC pipe. When he does escape (sometimes the kids or their friends leave the door open), I leave the front and back sliding glass doors opened a crack and also disconnect the dryer vent so he has many ways to get back in if he can find his way back. Sometimes, the neighborhood kids find him and bring him back. The entire complex is surrounded by a wall, so he can't go REAL far (there are 80 units within the wall). during one of his escapades, he got into a neighbor's house through their disconnected drier vent. They didn't know what kind of animal he was and they shooed him out. He had returned by the time I heard the story. The 2 animals get along fine. Occasionaly, they wrestle. Other times they ignore each other. Keep me informed about your mailing list. I have posted a couple articles about the ferret and got little response. Gary -- Gary A. Davis Racal-Milgo, P.O. Box 407044, Fort Lauderdale, Fl 33340, (305) 476-4393 {allegra,codas}|novavax!utx1!davis **************************************** From: uunet!EDDIE.MIT.EDU!gatech!tektronix!sequent!alan (Alan Gardiner) To: clewis@lsuc [inclusions from my original articld deleted] I hope this gets through, as I do not always have good luck answering such postings. I have had a male albino ferret (Nick) for about three years. He has NEVER been in a cage, and I can not imagine ever having a ferret and keeping him/her in a cage. We are very close and he goes most places wth me. He is paper-trained most of the time. He will have an accident when he is too far from his papers. They have tiny systems, and when they have to go, they have to go. Not keeping a ferret in a cage requires more time and patience when they are young, but it is worht the extra effort by the time they have matured. Nick is a faithful compnion and will follow me most everywhere in my house. When I shower, he waits by the tub. When I practice (music), he lies at the base of my stand. By never being in a cage, (one must have patience, its like having a very active 2 year old somtimes)-- the animal, who is smarter than any dog or cat-- has become very social. He has NEVER been struck. I have used voice commands with im since I got him at the age of 6 weeks. He has never bitten anyone, although he sometimes plays a bit rough. I think a cage causes a ferret to become agressive. Imagine keeping a dog in a cage its whole life. Try to keep yours out as much as possible. Good luck and regards alan gardiner [We try as much as possible to let them out of their cages, but only while supervised. We felt that even after ferret proofing the rooms we let them run around in, there are too many dangers for them. That, and of course since their not perfectly litter trained.] ********************************** From: Leonard Bottleman <uunet!tektronix!puff.GWD.TEK.COM!leonard> Fenchurch has asked me to reply to your article. She lives with me, and her friends, Farli, Menolly, and Tris, live on a sailboat with Bobbi, a friend of mine who only has part-time access to the net. Both Bobbi and I have owned ferrets for several years now, but Bobbi has a lot more time to spend with hers, and so she knows more details about them than me. Bobbi and I are looking forward to hearing from you. Leonard Bottleman Bobbi Dyer [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] "Tomato bowling is God's gift to ferrets." -Farli, Menolly, and Tris [Have you tried "practise golf balls"? The softish plastic ones with holes. Not the brittle plastic cat toys with bells in them - our ferrets crush them in seconds. One of the few toys ours haven't tired of. Along with mailing tubes and some VERY ruged squeaky dog toys] ******************************** From: ihnp4!tektronix!videovax.TEK.COM!shuju (Shu-Ju Wang-Burgess) Well, we have 2. One male and one female. There are probably 10 ferret owners on the net, some of them are very active and others are not. For a [I seem to have found most of them. 10 plus anon.] While there I was doing a lot of correspondence with them when my husband was doiing his senior paper on ferrets (he's a vet). I still keep in tough with the Crandalls (I'm sure you'll hear from them). Ours are only out when we're there to supervise them. They will use the litter box when they feel like it. When they are feeling lazy or upset with us for whatever reason, they won't. I had hoped to be able to train them well enough to let them run around the house loose 24 hours a day, but have not been very successful. They also like to harrass the cat. So I try to give the cat some peace and quiet by keeping the ferrets in their cage when we're gone. If you're going to start a mailing list, be sure to add my name! thanks. Shu-Ju [log in to unmask] -- Shu-Ju Wang Burgess UUCP: {ucbvax, allegra, uw-beaver, ihnp4,...}!tektronix!videovax!shuju ********************************* From: uunet!tahoe.unr.edu!janet (Janet L. Crow) Organization: Univ. of Nev., Reno-Mathematics Hello! I have an albino male ferret, named alvin. He is four years old and has run of half my apartment. His cage is now kept in my storage area. He always uses his litter pan now that I have partioned off the kitchen and bathroom. I feel tha tthe key to litter training is limiting the free roaming area. Alvin is very playful, but his playfulness is disturbing to non-ferret people. As with most ferrets he loves to roll around with his mouth open, and teeth showing. Has anyone else had this problem with strangers? I have had to lock him in the bedroom when new people are over. Does anyone else out their have an albino ferret? I have to wonder if Alvin is a little blind, he is constantly running into things. [Ours willsomtimes go into the mock-attack mode with or without strangers around. Generally, we warn people about this beforehand, and have never had any problems. In spite of the warnings from Alan (above), our ferrets aren't aggressive, and have never drawn blood. Little rough somtimes, but we're careful with strangers first. Tell 'em to sit in a chair with their feet up! The main problem is with people who subconsciously are shuting "rat!" - teeth or no teeth, there's not a lot you can do other than keepnig the ferret well away from such people] Janet L. Crow [log in to unmask] seismo!unrvax!janet ******************************************** From: uunet!umd5!FMPMIS!scott [This one ended up somewhat garbled. No full name, and lins are longer than 80 characters. Scott? Could you send me your full name and try to keep within 80 columns? BITNET really hates it...] o end up with more than one corner with a littler box. Life with ferrets is not perfect! We have several books on them and have several years worth of ob- servation to contribute to any further discussions. [We have two really good books on ferrets. I'll mail out the references tomorrow] ******************************************* From: <anon> [censored by request - see administrivia above. I'm probably being a little paranoid, but I decided to even censor the state] Hello, I would be very interested in a ferret newsgroup. I have two ferrets, Rascal, a male, and Shadow, a female. They are both fixed although we did breed them once. I would like to see a discussion on what we can do to legalize them instates where they are not legal to own. I am in that predicament right now which is why I must request that you do not use my name in your poll or in any other way. I bought my ferrets in Texas in a pet shop. The owenr happened to be from [state] and when I told her I was planning to move back to [state] after I got married she assured me that [state] had just passed a law legalizing them. So I ended up buying one in Janurary, enjoyed him so much I bought another in early May, and got married and moved back home to [state] during first week of June. Well, when I got back I asked around and found that ferrets are still illegal to own so my ferrets now have to live a life of secrecy. In Texas I used to take them to the mall, to the park, even got caught sneaking them, (actually just Rascal. I hadn't gotten Shadow yet) in a restaurant by our waitress. She was pretty cool about it though. After we moved up and got our apartment (no pets allowed :-) ) we bred them. We kept Shadow and young in a large box in the closet. One night we kept hearing the man who lived below us sliding his closet door open looking for the mice or whatever that kept squeeking. he never knew it was coming from our apartment. We ended up taking the youngun's to a pet shop in [another state], where they are legal. Now we live in [state], where they are debating on legalizing them but not having much luck. People are saying that ferrets attack babies. I've found that ferrets have [Probably no worse than the "Dog eats baby" headlines that seem to come out a couple of times a year. Does anybody have real references on this? One of our ferrets, Mocha, seems to be homicidal towards babies of ANY species (human or ferret). Just the smell of a baby - puffed up tail etc. Tried to kill Toby when he was small (He's too big now - they've finally become friends). Around babies we simply do not let our ferrets run free - next thing you know the baby grabes the ferret hard, and the ferret retaliates - as almost any other animal would.] different personalities and you can't say all ferret attack babies any more than you can say all pit bulls are blood thirsty monsters. I would never own a pit bull but I refuse to condemn the breed because of a few attacks. The attacking dogs may not have been trained to fight by they probably came from fighting stock. Getting back to ferrets I have round one vet that will treat my ferrets if they are sick but will not touch them otherwise. We used to let them have their own room to run around in but Shadow had gotten something cuaght in her intestines and we almost lost her so now we keep them caged. They are litter boxed trained but if they think the box is too dirty, even if its only been used a few times, they go on the floor. Well, I gotta get back to work so please keep in touch and lets get this newsgroup going. By the way if I don't answer directly it's because I don't full understand how UUCP works and have a hard time getting mail outside of [company]. Next week I start work as a systems administrator so I'll probably learn more. Also on my present node I'm not running Unix so that limits me but I may have access to a Unix node on my new job. Catch ya later, [Is there a way we can help? One fo the ferret books does have some anecdotes on legalizing them. I will put a reference in tomorrow.] =========================================================== to send an item to the mailing list: send mail to ferret-list@spectrix To ask a question or whatever, send mail to ferret-request@spectrix Chris Lewis, Spectrix Microsystems Inc, UUCP: {uunet!mnetor, utcsri!utzoo, lsuc}!spectrix!clewis Phone: (416)-474-1955 [Posted in FML 5826]