I've been a subscriber since last September but have never posted so i would like to introduce my family-there's my husband (Dean); our 7 ferrets:TARZAN (our hyperactive one, a sable male),CHEETAH (a sable female); BUTCH (sable male), Ning (sable female), Kokela (sable female), PANDORA(female with one foot missing, sort of a panda but marking are not very clearcut) and POSSUM (female, sort of a silver mitt-we have had her the longest). All are neutered. We had two more who died: MIRACLE was our first ferret and he succumbed to cancer several years ago and JANE who just died in October from cardiac complications. All of our ferrets were either adopted from the shelter in Chicago or from a research project. We also have a cat (DORIAN GRAY) and I have 2 saddlebred horses. The FML is the only electronec list that I subscribe to and I 'm very impressed with it. I enjoy reading about other ferret antics, new toy suggestions etc. and am very grateful for Dr. Williams input. At this point I wish to comment on the Kansas case. If the story is factual (and I believe it is) then this is a very frightening incident. There was another similar incident that occurred here in Madison WI during the 3 or 4th week in December- a pet ferret got loose, ended up on someones porch-this person evidently came out and kicked at it and it bit her. Authorities (animal control?) were called and the ferret was killed because ofthe "shedding time" factor. My husband and I and several other ferret lovers are inquiring about this incident so we will have our facts straight and maybe we can do SOMETHING( I don"t know what yet). These events came as a shock to us because we naively assumed that USDA approval to use this vaccine in ferrets implied that the correct studies were done and that our ferrets would be protected from this sort of seizure by authorities. I do know that we will be very careful about letting our ferrets interact with visitors just in case! I'm also wondering why the company that produces the vaccine doesn't contribute to the shedding time study. Another question- if the shedding time study is done will our ferrets then be protected from the authorities? Sorry for going on for so long! Judy Manning [Posted in FML issue 0723]