[I took the liberty of running this through nroff because the original was far beyond 80 columns wide - please be careful!] Our three house weasels are starting to become much more active now that Spring is approaching. Nothing is safe from Meltdown who is a real climber (of the ferrets we've had over the years, only two have been serious climbers). It is not unusual for her to climb a person and perch on their head. The quality of musk from the small glands behind their ears seems to change in Spring. All of them are "sneezing" to bring the stuff up (it took us a long time to figure out what sneezing really means to mustelids). Our oldest ferret, Fritter, has al- ways had poor quality ear musk so Sukie regularly supplements Frit's musk with perfume. The other ferrets are in awe of Frit for about a day after this happens. We find that they will dom- inate her if this isn't done regularly. (Frit actually will beg for perfume every few days. She'll run into the room where it is kept if you mention the word and will point to where it is kept). We've been supplementing their diets with bitches milk supplement for almost a year now with excellent results. Hjalmar has a wonderful coat - probably the best he's had - this year despite the fact that he's nearly 5 years old (the last coat that was this nice was when he was two). The only negative side effect is that you have to trim their nails every two weeks. We are now ex- pert at trimming ferret claws - the trick is to give them some food treat they enjoy so much that they don't realize what is go- ing on with their paws. Some folks have talked about ferret cages. We have a ferret room (15' x 12') where they have semi-supervised access and a 3' x 3' x 3' small animal cage where they den or live when we are away. They naturally will go into the cage to sleep, but they don't en- joy being confined in it when they have lots of energy. It would be very difficult to ferret-proof our condo, so they are allowed out of the room only when closely supervised. It is amazing how much trouble they can find in a short amount of time. Does anyone know the status of the California ferret restric- tions? I understand they are now under review, but haven't heard anything in a few months. Is there any news on an approved rabies vaccine yet? happy weaseling ... Steve and Sukie Crandall along with Fritter, Hjalmar and Meltdown [Posted in FML 0099]