Dear Ferret Folks- I cannot say if it is a good or a bad thing health-wise for a ferret to be very large. That is not my area of experience and I won't even try to address it. What I *can* do is tell you a bit of what it is like to live with a big breeder ferret if you have never done so. My Caff-Pow came to me from DeVore's in Virginia and I love him dearly. He is a true individual. He doesn't suck up. He isn't pretending to be anything that he is not and compromise is not in his vocabulary. He is who he is, never giving an inch. I had him neutered at four months because at three and and half pounds he was already darn near everything I could keep up with. He weighs in at a little over four pounds now, and I am *extremely* grateful that I didn't allow him to attain his full potential weight, which could reasonably be expected to have topped five pounds. Four pounds of ferret is all that I can handle! More, sometimes. The first thing you need to do with one of the big boys is throw away everything you have ever learned about reasonable ferret-proofing, and start all over. Does anyone here remember that man's videos of his apartment full of Russian Sables? I do. They caused quite a stir. Everyone said "I WANT ONE!" and I remember thinking "Are they serious? Look how those things *move.*" There is no place in that apartment they couldn't reach with what I estimate as six to eight foot horizontal leaps. Imagine actually living with a critter that can do that if it wants to in your *house?* I can imagine it. Easily. When Caff-Pow gets really bored he can climb the back of the refrigerator and get on top. When I move to take him down he looks at me, says "KOWABUNGA,DUDE!" and simply leaps onto the kitchen floor and hits the ground running. That leap doesn't even make him go "Oof!" It is a feat that I have never seen a Marshall's ferret attempt. Climb up there? Sure, if they had a mind to. But just leap off and land with precision and safety? Nope. That's all Caff-Pow. Caff-Pow has absolutely no fear of people or fear of ticking them off. I like to think that's because he is gently treated. He thinks it's *fun* to leap up into a ladies skirt from underneath and hang from her panties. Or just from the soft inside of her thigh, using his teeth and claws. I have yet to meet any lady, including myself who thinks that it's the least bit funny. I don't wear many skirts, but he has sent me shrieking across the house on more then one occasion when he decided it would be fun to climb up the inside of my nightgown. He doesn't mean any harm, it's just another interesting thing to climb. I have had to put hook and eye latches on closet doors because he can open them simply by lying down in front of them and repeatedly yanking and clawing at the bottom of the door. It's not real good for the veneer. He can also pry baseboard trim right off of the walls if he wants. Nails and all. There are times when he is simply so active and destructive that I lock him and Todd together in the bathroom for an hour. There is not much in there 'Pow can destroy. Knock over, yes. But not destroy. Sometimes he needs out of the cage time and I need sanity time. Eventually he gets bored in there and falls asleep in the towels curled up with Todd, who is only half his size. I am extremely grateful that Caff-Pow has, all in all, a calm nature. He has never poofed, although he is quite capable of it. Once he was doing something particularly wretched and my husband snatched him up from off of the floor roughly. 'Pow was scared, so he gave a little shriek then sank his fangs into my husband's hand, right through the nail bed, drawing blood. Don't think my husband got a speck of sympathy. I chewed him out for scaring a small animal so badly that it felt an instinctive need to defend itself. My husband felt awful for what he had done, and it has never been repeated. But I have no doubt that if 'Pow really wanted to scrap he could do some serious damage. He plays rough just for fun, and I don't let children play with him at all. He just wants to play, and doesn't know his own strength. Every ferret deserves a good, loving home. I love all four pounds of my 'Pow, he brings me much more joy and laughter than frustration. But I couldn't give a home to a ferret nearly twice his size. It is beyond me, it would be beyond a lot of perfectly good ferret mommies. I can well imagine a ferret the size and weight of my *cat* getting dumped because it did too much damage to the home or hurt someone. We have enough dumped ferrets already, I am thinking. So if you are thinking "I gotta get a seven pound ferret!" you should ask yourself "am I *capable* of giving an animal with that level of physicality a home? Am I up to that kind of commitment? How would my spouse feel about that kind of comittment?" I bet there are days that the guy with the Russia Sables thinks "I need a vacation from these things!" Wouldn't you? They are beautiful. And I don't want one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG9tw4VCCE0 Alexandra in MA, Acknowledging her limitations. [Posted in FML 6886]