Dear Sandy; Oh how I feel your pain! Even in a city of over 1 million people, we have no emergency facilities for ferrets after hours. We have 3 emergency clinics, but on a good day they will tell you they know nothing about ferrets, on a bad, and there are more bad than good, they just flat lie and the ferret pays the price. I may have a suggestion for you and others who suddenly, in the middle of the night find their backs against the wall. Of course your best bet is still to find a vet who will see your kids under emergency circumstances, but in places like ours, there are none. Many of the shelters who are actually hospices as opposed or in addition to the traditional type of shelter have extensive medical equipment, supplies and knowledge. Here we have everything from narcotic analgesics to oxygen and back again. We have terminal ferrets, most in various states of ill health and need to be prepared to help a suddenly critical kid make it through long enough to get to the vet in the morning. Some times that means only being able to relieve pain or anxiety (we are not vets after all), some times that means actually being able to save a life. I have spoken with other hospices who are equipped are operate similarly. How does that help you? Well here is the price of compassion......we can not 'work' on any one not our own for liability reasons. So the 'price' is you must surrender your loved one to the shelter, and in writing. Since we are also a rehab facility, if we are able to get the ferret back on his/her feet and are convinced its surrendering home will be able to deal with any remaining medical issues and can provide a safe and loving home, then the surrendering family has the option of adopting the little person back. The adoption fee is usually equivalent to medical costs. It is a fine line we walk, and I don't want to encourage other shelters to do this without thinking it through, but it has worked out for us many, many times. For you, if nothing else it, may have at least provided a sense of you were able to do something, to help. I encourage you to first try to find an after hours vet to help and if that is not possible, check with your local shelter and see what they do for an after hours vet. If there is no vet available, ask what they do in such cases and if they have the medical knowledge, equipment, and are willing to take in others in emergent circumstances. I am so sorry about your baby boy Simon. I have learned many lessons in life the hard way, and only some from the warnings of others. From the FML I learned to removed my 'sack of sacks', a big plastic bag containing other plastic bags. Even though I had never had a problem, with that or dozens of other toys, some one else posted they had. After careful consideration, caution vs. probability, many of those toys are only down when the kids are supervised. My thanks and sympathy to those who lost kids but had the strength and courage to share. Again, I am so sorry. Brenda, Momma to the FurpeopleWeyr http://pages.prodigy.net/furpeopleweyr/index.html [Posted in FML 5848]