We picked up a little rescue jill yesterday and she was the sweetest little ferret that we have ever, Ever, *EVER* seen (only partially because she is a Marshall Farms ferret, I am sure). However, upon giving her a close inspection when we got her home, we discovered that she was terribly infested with fleas. We have never had a flea problem, so the only shampoo that we have for use on our carpet sharks is either Ferret Glow, Outright Ferret Shampoo or special coat conditioning shampoo (that has no deodorizing effect past the first day) that we only use for competition. None of these say that they will kill fleas. We confirmed this. We felt so bad that we had to give this poor little girl such a long bath. It took us a full hour to get rid of all of the fleas that were on her. But, as I said above, she didn't squirm (much :-) ), she didn't bite or act at all like a wet ferret normally acts. She even held still while we picked fleas off around her eyes, with tweezers. And, no, she is not otherwise sick. Although, I am sure that she was probably not in the best condition, with that many fleas biting her all the time. We counted no less than fifty (50) fleas either washed off, combed off or picked off of her body. However, this morning, her coat is shiny and fluffy and from the best that I can tell, free of fleas. She seems more alert than she did when we got her. But, she is still just as sweet as ever... maybe more so. In fact, if the people who said that they want her don't pick her up, we may decide to keep her ourselves. The question that All of this brings up is, "What kind of flea killing shampoo can be used safely on ferrets?" [Before I got a chance to mail this, my vet returned my call and suggested Adams Shampoo for cats to kill the fleas ON the ferret. I have never heard of it, but I guess that I will have to find it. I want to make sure that Jenny (temporary name) is completely clear of fleas before we let her go.] Next question, "What do you use on the carpet to kill fleas that is not toxic to ferrets?" Jenny was only in a back bedroom and bathroom, away from all of the other carpet sharks in the living room. But we don't want any escaped fleas to get downstairs. That bathroom is also where we normally give our carpet sharks their baths, so we will be giving our little fuzzies their baths downstairs until we are sure that there are no fleas upstairs. We bought a flea collar and put it in the vacuum cleaner bag and vacuumed the whole upstairs and then disposed of the bag. We plan to do the same downstairs this evening. [When Dr. Jordan called a while ago, he suggested spraying permethrin and precor on and under everything fabric. The precor kills the fleas in the eggs and permethrin kills the adult fleas. He told me that I should keep the ferrets off of the carpet until it was dry and the fumes had dissapated.] Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated. ----------------- "Cats may be cool, but carpet sharks rule!" John Gaver ([log in to unmask]) [Posted in FML issue 0499]