To Greg Lovell: Greg - the best way to remove ticks is to take a pair of tweezers (I use my fingers, but because of Lyme disease, you should be wearing rubber gloves) and slowly pull the tick out. There are may old wive's tales about leaving the head in - while this occasionally happens if you rip the tick off, slow gentle backward pressure will usually remove the entire tick. I have never actually seen a case of infection from the head of a tick in an animal's skin - I wonder where all of this gets started... You can try coating it with mayonnaise, nail polish, or touching the end of the tick with a hot blown-out match, but I have never had any success with this technique. After you removed the ticks, make sure to bathe your ferrets is a pyrethrin-based shampoo. BTW, ticks aren't usually itchy - that's why we're always so surprised when we find them....I'd go with the mite theory, myself. But next time your vet diagnoses mites - ask him to show them to you under the scope.... Bruce Williams, DVM, DACVP Dept. of Vet Path, AFIP [log in to unmask] OR Chief Pathologist, AccuPath [log in to unmask] [Posted in FML issue 1375]