I think many of us have dreamt at one time or another that we could build an outdoor natural living area for our ferrets (or that we had the money to). I have been intrigued ever since I met Chris from England a dozen years ago who kept her little ones outdoors along with many other Britts who at the very least offer their garden areas to their ferrets for routine visits. Then Shirley of Australia shared videos and photos of her indoor/outdoor natural living enclosure for her ferrets at an International Symposium. We were all glued to the screen. These ferrets acted unlike anything we expected. They chose to do things we thought they'd dislike or that would be unhealthy to them. Such as seeking naps in the sun right in the middle of a yard. Or jumping into a small pond to swim. It was mind boggling. But I wondered how much of these results was due to genetics, natural feeding, and late altering? Some people in the U.S. have been able to build indoor/outdoor set ups and they all have claimed to have far less, health issues than normal. They claim that there are far less, if any, adrenal issues, despite the fact that their ferrets have no eurpean blood in them, no natural feeding, and are early alters. I've always been fascinated by that. Well, I discovered that Dianne Campell of Ferret Guardian Rescue Haven in NC, did accomplish her dream. I knew it was being built a few years back. She has been generous enough to share detailed photos of the enclosure being built with the public on the web. But I never did see the end results until today. Fortunately, she has also put up several videos of her ferrets using the optional outdoor natural enclosure, playing in the snow, rolling in the grass, climbing water fountains, tunneling in the ground and more. And something struck me, and struck me hard. Go watch these videos. Does one single ferret look adrenal in these vids to you?? http://fgrh.org/construction.html The ferrets are large, very large, athletic, have great muscle tone, and have the thickest fur I've seen. These animals look like private bred late alter ferrets from our best American breeders. But guess what? The bulk of her crew is MF/PV/FFF ferrets. Its incredible what a largely natural diet (she feeds special grain free kibble and whole pre killed prey) and outdoors (the CHOICE of outdoor or indoor living given to them) will do. This is what I've been told for many years by others. But I've not seen such dramatic evidence inside America of this and most impressively ... with our mass bred farm ferrets! In any case, ponderings aside, go watch the videos for fun. It will make your day. Wolfy [Posted in FML 7400]