Hello all, Well, we visited the pet store this weekend (very dangerous) and fell in love with a new little baby ferret. Weak willed as we appear to be, we brought him home to add to the family. The new addition is a little male white footed sable, although only the toes are actually white, not the whole foot. We named him "Balin" in keeping with the Hobbit dwarf theme of our other two fuzzies, Fili and Kili. We have two health questions concerning Balin: (1) Sneezing: the little guy will go off into a violent fit of repeat body shaking sneezes, about five sneezes every five minutes. Some of the other ferrets in the pet store seemed to have minor colds and runny noses. Balin seemed fairly healthy and wasn't sneezing until we brought him home. He still doesn't have a runny nose, his appetite is fine, and his bowel movements are fine. Is this a cold? does he have some weird allergies? should we be doing anything? (2) Balin seems to have a "distended anus". It protrudes about 2mm, certainly much more than the two females we have. Others in the same batch also had a similar condition. When he uses the litterpan, pieces of litter will stick into the anus. We are using coarse clay litter (non clumping of course) that neither of the other two have had problems with. When we clean this litter off, there is sometimes a tiny amount of blood which we thought might be caused by the sharp clay pieces. Is the anal "shape" symptomatic of anything to be concerned with? Is this a male thing? (this is our first male ferret). Anyway, Fili and Kili have adopted Balin without too much fuss. Sometimes the play is a bit rough for the little guy but he holds his own fairly well! All the best to everyone and their fuzzies. Edward, Danielle and the terrible trio: Fili, Kili, and Baby Balin. [Posted in FML issue 1098]