Polecats want very fresh food, and wouldn't eat what you can find in a garbage can. They are known to break the legs of their food so it can't run away until it's time to eat, and have a neat trick of paralysing frogs by biting them in the neck. Problem is, ferrets get imprinted on what they eat the first 90 days, so if you raise a puppie on junk food, that's what it will prefer for the rest of its life. What I'd like to know is, what have the old healthy ferrets been fed? Some people from our ferret organization went to England some time ago, where they were much impressed with an eleven year old female who had continued to win awards at an advanced age. The only sign of age that showed on her was that if you looked carefully, you could see that she had started to lose some fur on her tail. They remarked that this was not yet a normal condition in Sweden, and wished it was. Anybody know what the 17 year old ferret was fed? According to that visit, there must be lots of ferrets in England that are not kept as cheap, working animals. Most people they visited had them in their homes like cats, and one lady had even kept one that was born blind, and it managed very well. (Probably its like here with two classes of ferret owners: Working <> Companions.) The comment on "not beeing worth it taking them to a vet" prompts me to tell you about medical costs in Sweden. I've got mine insured, and as I've put a "value" of 0 on them (if they die, I don't get money to buy new ones), and the more you have, the less you pay, the cost for one year is about US$45. If I go to the vet, I have to pay the first US$40 and 20% of the remaining, up to a maximum of US$750. Taking them to a routine visit, like listening to the lungs and getting a receipt for antibiotics cost about US$20. If you take them to an emergency visit, on non-office hours, you can expect to pay US$55 for the examination. If they need a surgical operation, it's about US$600 more, and about US$25 per day they have to stay at the hospital. All these fees are lower than for cats or dogs, "because the ferrets are smaller". You can only insure them if they are between 3 months and 8 years (which if I remember right is two years less than for dogs). -- Urban Fredriksson [log in to unmask] [Your prices for visits are about the same as in Canada. Spay/neuter runs around $80-$130US, incremental descenting is about $40. Our previous vet charged $80US/hour for surgery 3 years ago. Shots about $15-25US/ea. $5US/day for boarding. $10/day for ICU (including maintenance of intravenous). Like you, out-of-hours visits are expensive - about $80/US.] [Posted in FML issue 0390]