[My sister-in-law got the first two ferrets in the family. When we got our first two ferrets, we weren't going to descent them because of our experience with her two: Minka (sable male) and Tia (pretty very-light-coloured sable - almost silver). (BTW: Minka died while being neutered because the vet gave the wrong anaesthetic). Neither of them smelled much. Also, our vet had suggested that our ferrets just be spayed but not descented. He said that ferrets usually don't smell too bad, and we could have the descenting done later if necessary. So our first two (Mocha and Nicia) were fixed but not descented. And for a year and a half that was just fine. No problems. We didn't know what ferret spray smelled like for well over a year (until an upset mastiff pulled Mocha's cage off the vet's waiting room chair....) Then Toby came into our lives. Mocha hated his guts and tried to kill him several times... We kept them separated until he got big enough to handle himself. Even after Toby was too big for Mocha to seriously hurt, they still didn't get along too well. Mocha took out her frustrations by starting to spray. Like every second day. Toby occasionally too. Sheesh! Since we wanted peace in our house, and we figgered that the main difficulty was the fact that Toby was as yet not neutered, we had him done as soon as the Vet would let us. Further, to make sure that the problem was over, we had both Mocha and Toby descented at the same time. Mocha hasn't had any problems with the surgery. Our regular vet called us last night to see how Toby was doing (you may remember that he was down in a conference when Toby developed his abcess and we managed to find some other vet that knew ferrets) and ensure that the other vet had taken care of things properly. Our regular vet had seen his first anal sac abcess in a ferret two months previously. And he's been working with them for five years. The other vet (quite familiar with ferrets, but perhaps not quite as many as our regular vet) had never seen one before. And, they both told us that this problem was usually spontaneous and had nothing to do with the descenting - similarly with dogs and cats which have abcesses far more frequently and are almost never descented (except *after* they have an abcess). In retrospect, it was perhaps not neccessary to have Mocha descented now that Toby's an "it". And perhaps not even necessary to have done Toby - we know *most* of the spraying was done by Mocha, and the rest in retaliation by Toby. But, at least Toby doesn't smell as much anymore. (BTW: neither my wife or myself mind the smell much except when they spray, further, our ferrets travel a lot....) Nicia's *not* going to be descented. We made that decision a long time ago because of what she's been thru. Besides, Nicia still hasn't figgered out that she *has* scent glands... My recommendation is the same as our vet's: - Even unneutered/undescented ferrets don't smell *that* bad! And, if you give 'em a bath every week or two, you won't have any problems. - Don't automatically descent when being neutered. Any problems with smell will probably greatly lessen. - Only descent if you have a real odor problem (eg: lots of spraying) BTW: last we tried, none of our ferrets liked meat either - they've become pretty fixated on Science Diet Feline Maintenance dry food. cl. ] [Posted in FML 0008]