David asked about ferrets and babies: We have a 7 month old son who LOVES our ferrets. The responsible pet owner and parent though limits the contact (for the sake of both) and never unsupervised. STAR*, AFA, LAFF and several other ferret lubs and organizations now have pictures of our son (Derek Harrison) with our old lady Furball. There are also pictures of Derek and one of our sable kits. We keep our ferrets in the basement (finished - I lost my pool table to these guys) and our human nursery on the second floor. Cats share with the ferrets and dogs in the middle. Quite a menagerie. In your case I would recommend the sweetest Marshall Farms ferrets you can find. I have never seen a mean MF ferret but even the best breeders get the occaisional less polite ferret - including us unfortunately. You might also try to find older ferrets rather than kits. Kits tend to play rougher than adults and them boogers got sharp little teeth. Kits aren't evil they just think of teeth as toys. I trust my eldest Furball absolutely completely with my baby. I've even let them sleep together at a ferret show. I adore all of my other ferrets but don't trust the quite as much if the baby were to squeeze them. Unprovoked I trust most of them but babies are unreliable unfortunately. I think it is a workable situation but with caution. I'd keep the ferrets in cages most of the time - and all of the time you are not around. If you get a large enough cage with enough tubes and tunnels and hammocks and open space your ferrets would be happy - ours are. If I get a snail-mail address I can send soem of the photots up for you, Kelleen, and FANG to use for positive images of ferrets and children on displays. John and Christi brought up descenting: I'm strongly of the opinion that descenting is not necessary or even helpful. I strongly support limitting descenting to those cases where it is medically desirable. A ferret that can't control its discharges wouldl be a candidate for the surgery. Descenting is more expensive that neutering a male and almost as much as spaying a female (at Dr. Kawasaki's Old Bridge Veterinary Hospital). It is a seperate operation from the spay/neuter and not connected in anyway except the sharing of the anathesia. I've also been told it is a harder operation on adults than young kits. Descenting does not help in the day to day odor of a ferret. Regular ear cleaning and keeping their housing clean are FAR more important. Medically spaying a pet ferret is essential and desired for males so I'm assuming any ferret you get would end up altered. Its not evil and horrible to descent but I don't like it the same way I don't like declawing cats or cutting the ears and tails of dogs. My opinions of course vary from some others. bill killian zen and the art of ferrets [Posted in FML issue 1348]