Dear Arlena- I Don't usually answer these medical questions (I am more like an FML court jester than a fuzzy expert) but I was doing research on *just* this subject the other day, and here is what I found. If there is a blockage in the intestine (which is a smooth muscular tube no bigger around than a pencil that can really only push in one direction) vomiting will *not* dislodge it. Once the object has passed from the stomach into the intestine itself you have missed your window of barfing opportunity! Now you ferretlax the heck out of your fuzzy and call a vet ASAP, if you think this is what is going on. The substance you refer to from childhood (Oh, I remember this stuff! Every home with kids used to have an evil looking bottle of it in the medicine cabinet.) is called ipecac. It's a kind of plant extract made into a syrup, and a little bit will make you hurl and hurl and hurl. I just went online and read about it, and it is now out of favor with pediatricians. They say that it delays treatment in poisoning cases, making parents think that a kid will hack up a poison and be safe, when in fact the kid needs to be in an E.R. right away. Further, little children (who think that amaaaazing substances taste good) can drink the whole bottle and make themselves desperately ill, hospital ill. Further, the side effects of ipecac can confuse the whole poisoning issue, making it harder to guess what kind of poison a kid has gotten into in the first place. A big overdose causes sleepiness, and the vomiting will cause dehydration. Given that there is no dosage for ferrets on the little bottle, you really don't want to guess and be wrong. I think that you might do terrible damage to a ferret with this stuff, and you should give up on the idea. If only it could be that simple! Give a ferret a drop of ipecac, and up comes the chewed eraser! Nope. Alexandra in MA [Posted in FML 5998]