Now, as we all know, ferrets are not rodents (a common mistake made by the press). They also are not viverrids. Viverrids are animals like meerkats which fill a similar ecological niche but have a different genetic background, though the press and occasionally others make that mistake, too. Opps! Viverrids are descended from the feline branch of Carnivora. Ferrets are mustelids and are descended from the canine branch of Carnivora. Here is where we get to the biology of behavior. There are two recent stories on the ways that two members of the canine branch of Carnivora use the magnetic field for two vastly different uses. Might the magnetic field play a part in ferret behavior or in your approaches to the ferrets' behavior? I do not know. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/03/259416979/everyone-poops-but-dogs-do-it-with-magnetism> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2014/01/03/259136596/youre-invisible-but-ill-eat-you-anyway-secrets-of-snow-diving-foxes> [Posted in FML 8015]