[I'm posting this because of the many new members to the list] First of all, the address I sent this to, it's to Chris (you) the 'moderator', right? If I changed it to -list it would go into the mailing list. I just to make sure I get this straight. [This isn't an automatic mailing list. I collect articles together and send them out in batches. There's both a ferret-list and ferret-request, as per the mailing list naming conventions, but at the moment they're aliased to me. At various times I may change that, so I encourage people to send their articles to ferret-list, and their administrative questions or requests to ferret-request.] Next, is the mailing-list still active, it's been since Jan 11 since I have received anything from it. [I go for months without getting anything, but it's still ticking along. Note that we're at issue 98! Who'da thunk...] Last, can I ask you a few questions that I think the rest of group might find 'trivial'? I just didn't know if I should clutter up the list with something that you may be able to answer without bugging everyone else. 1) How do you keep your ferret(s)? In a cage(s)? What about time that you are gone (for work for instance). A couple of people have seen mine and claim it's cruel to keep such a socialable animal in a cage up until 5 or 6pm every day (except weekends of course). [Some people give their ferrets free reign over part or all of their house for 24 hours per day. Some not - for most ferrets never get completely perfectly litter-trained. Ours get a couple of hours of playtime per day. As long as the cage is reasonably large, this shouldn't be a problem.] 2) What about shampoo'in them. I heard it's not good to shampoo them as often as we would like because it dries out their skin. I went ahead and bought something called Ferret Glow which seems to me does wonders as far as making his fur quite soft. [How often would you like? Ours get a bath every 2-3 weeks. As long as you use very mild shampoo, you're not likely to have a problem. We've never found the smell of a ferret to be particularly objectionable, so we haven't gone hog-wild on baths.] Well I'll leave it at that in case, a) this doesnt make it and b) you'd rather I just go ahead and send it to the list. [I did...] Please let me know if this at least made it to you. Thanks, Paul Paul Linton University of Kentucky. ...!ukma!pjl [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask] or (different machine) plinton@ukcc [Posted in FML 0098]