What got you interested in ferrets? I never saw one till someone in Mass had one on his shoulder. He was from Conn. where they were legal to have. Never saw one before then, and not again till I moved to Va. Neighbor had one and I liked the animal. I saw another at the gun club. It was great at carrying that moving target. That worked great till he got into the shot gun range. Ummmmmm. So I decided I wanted a pet and thought for months of what I wanted. Didn't want a dog, just too much animal. Didn't want a cat. I decided I wanted something different and then thought of a ferret. So I bought this big bag of dog food in preparation of the ferret. Then I learned they did not eat that crap so gave that to my neighbor. I stopped at a pet store and there were several ferrets in a big fish tank for sale. I bought Byte-me. I didn't even have a cage! So I left her to run around in the house loose and went to another pet store and got a rabbit cage. That was a perfect start but it needed so much more. I put water and got proper food for her and had a towel in there for her to lay on. She was using the litter box ok so that seemed to be a good start. Searching on the net I found the Ferret Store, and got a 'J' feeder and hammock. That was great, she loved them both. I modified the cage for the 'J' feeder. But that cage seemed a bit small so I bought a second rabbit cage and merged them together making two floors. That began to work out but I made this huge hole in the floor of the second cage for her to get up there. She needed a ramp. So I made a ramp and fixed the floor and also added carpet for the cage floor for her to walk on. This was progress. Then I decided she needed more room and put a third rabbit cage on top and more ramps and hammys. This was getting fun and complex. I made a frame for the base and put wheels on it so I could mover the cage around. That worked perfect! After time I continued to modify the cage adding and subtracting things experimenting till I got what suited me and suited Byte-me. Both were happy. But Byte-me needed company when I was away so I bought Nibble-ed. That worked. Then a friend saw my cage and wanted one like it. He bought a 100 foot roll of that wire for me to make a cage for him. I built it but found the mating of sides was not really good the way I did it. Searching the net I found a tool and the 'j' clips which worked perfectly. I found a local Southern States store had a supply of 'J' clips and bought nearly a dozen bags of them. Most are used up now! Ha! So I made a huge cage for my friend using one of the left over pans of the rabbit cage for him and still had one more bottom and allot of left over wire. So I built a third cage. No two were alike. Then my friend's wife decided she did not like what I made and bought some store ferret cage which had 1/10 the room in it and had the most feeble legs on it. That is where Diz lived. Diz came here while they were on vacation and I fixed the bad legs on her cage. My friend gave back the cage I built for him. I worked on it a bit, didn't need much and sold it to someone locally who was more than ecstatic to get it! Great! With the money I got for that I paid my friend for what he spent so we were even. With the left over wire and last left over base I built a third cage. Magnificent! This worked out great where I took in a couple rescues, Podo and Kodo from S.C. Then I got Bud from a shelter at VA beach so I had now a business of ferrets and they all had tons of room. Podo was in terrible health, just horrid. There was no recourse but to put him down. This was the first ferret loss. He was with me less than 2 months but was an excellent guy. I felt terrible but did what was correct for us each. He was an excellent guy. So was down to 4. I had to separate Kodo from the others where he was attacking them. So I kept the two cages next to each other so they could see each other and sniff each other and all, over time they melded to be friends. So was Kodo, Bud, Byte-me and Nibble-ed. A year later Bud passed. I think Nibble-ed did that where if Nib detected another weak she would assault them. Is what she was doing to Podo. One morning I got up and found Bud dead but his neck was very wet, I guess from Nib's assault. Was down to three. NIb passed one night. I could see she was not feeling well and was loosing weight. I got up one morning and found her dead in the hall. Have no idea what happened. Kodo then got Megasophagus. That was horrid. Over time and lots of force feeding even that failed. So it came time for me to put him down. That hurt. Kodo was a most excellent guy. I loved them all to death (no pun) and they were thinning out. Was left with Byte-me, my very first ferret. She and I could communicate. That was totally amazing. One day I went to work and told people I didn't think Byte-me would greet me when I got home. She was old, very old for a ferret and I could see she was fading. When I got home that day she was laying in her hammy exactly where I put her just before I left for work. She had passed. I grieve them all but of them all Byte-me I miss the very most. So I was without for a while. People on the FML knew it and were trying to get me interested in two ferrets in West Virginia that the SPCA had and were going to put down where no one wanted them and they needed room these guys were taking up. They had been there a very long time, well over a year. But they were just too far off for me to get so I declined. People on the FML kept telling me I needed to go get them and I kept declining. Then a rescue shelter near DC had an idea and plan. She would go bowling west of her shelter and bowled with a guy from west of the bowling center who lived somewhat east of the SPCA. So this guy went west to the SPCA and got the animals. He kept them for a day or so and brought them to the bowling center to give to the shelter person who brought them back to her shelter. She kept them for a couple days. Then some person volunteered to drive them south to Fredericksburg where I drove up to meet her and get them. Now I have Peekaboo who is blind and deaf and Pester who is a ball of fire earning her name pestering Peekaboo. They really don't totally get along but tolerate each other well enough to not fight. They did in the beginning but that stopped with my intervention. At least I was able to get the point across to them. So here we are. After the original business that had other additions, Pete and RePete, Rug Lumper, and a couple others I took in from shelters. These were all very old when I got them, no one wanted them for their age so I took them giving them a forever home. They passed in time. As I said, I grieve every one of them. Each were different, each had magnificent traits, and were so very happy to have a great place to sleep and play with lots of 'out' time. So that is my story of ferrets. I will always have a ferret as a house mate. A great animal, not a pet for everyone, but perfect for me. I love them all and want every one I see in a store. Just can't do that but I can still want can't I ? Gordon, Pester and Peekaboo Rev. J Gordon Bengtson Aarrow-Ranch Aviation Mechanicsville, Virginia 23111 [Posted in FML 6266]