Growth progress report: Rustan (3 months exactly yesterday) is up 0.1 kg since last week and is now at 1.25 kg; His sister seems to have stopped at 0.8 kg. I recently spoke with the breeder, and they say it's a pity their father was spayed since he and their mother produced fine offspring. Sort of nice to know. I think the number of people keeping whole males for breeding in the Stockholm area can be counted on one hand, as it troublesome to have them together with others. The breeder (who also runs a shelter) now has a new litter, this one requiring 24 attention. They got in charge of a litter of 2 1/2 weeks old minks, whose mother disappeared "under unclear circumstances". Since they catch lots of fish, they are unpopular among some people. These minks will be treated like ferrets and be handed out to people to keep. But they won't be given to anyone not experienced with ferrets. (I think I'll go there and have a look at them when they're older.) They say it's no problem at all keeping them together with ferrets, since they were taken care of by humans when so young. There's a surprising amount of lost and found ferrets they care of who are never reported as missing. In all likelyhood they are put out by owners who don't want them anymore. We guess, but of course can't know, that most of these unwanted ferrets come from pet stores. There is a possibility that we'll eventually get the sale of ferrets in pet store banned, just like happened with cats and dogs a few decades ago, using the same arguments. Last Sunday, we had an outing and picnic at The Copper Tents (a park) in Stockholm. It rained, but attendance was high anyway. Not only among us, but lots of other people came by and had a good look at our pets, so from a PR standpoint it was a success. -- Urban Fredriksson [log in to unmask] [Posted in FML issue 0850]