Hullo, I moved house this past weekend and now I'm in a nice, noisy (it's right at an intersection) one bedroom apartment that came practically ferret proofed. Both cages (Potpie's and Noodle/Friday/Easel's) cages are in the living room, so all the ferrets are climbing all over themselves to get in to sniff at each other. Maybe someone out there can help me figure out what this means: Potpie is an only ferret, has been all her life. She screeches and is terrified - doesn't even fight back - when aggressive ferrets approach her. Poop flies, she runs. If an uninterested ferret approaches her, she viciously attacks them and goes for the vitals - eyes, throat, belly. HOWEVER, when she's meeting ferrets through cage bars - hers or theirs - she happily plays 'mouth' where both ferrets mock-fight with open mouths. I'm convinced this is not done aggressively simply because her body language is *very* different when she does this than when the ferrets aren't separated by cage bars. Ie, ears pricked forward, fur flat, eyes bright when playing through cage bars, as opposed to bottle-brush tail, screeching, back not arched, etc. Anybody else ever had an only ferret behave like this? Does it bode well for her future socialization with my other ferrets? Since it's a new place, all of the ferts are thrilled to explore. Potpie gets run of everything except the bedroom, while the other three are confined to the living room when they're out. If both are out at the same time, a baby gate separates them. There's a fireplace in the living room that still has heaps of ashes (don't worry, it's ferretproofed too) in the top grate from the last fire. Guess what the ferrets wanted to do first? You betcha. One albino, one black sable, and one chocolate ferret climb INTO the fireplace. Some time later, three sneezing grey ferrets climb back out. Cage hint: for those of you who use wood shelves in their ferrets' cages, go to the fabric store and buy some canvas and some snaps (either the kind you 'crimp' on by using a tool and a hammer, or the sew kind. i prefer the crimp kind, since you get to make lots of noise and bang on stuff). Lay the shelves down, size the fabric to wrap around the shelves lengthwise with about 2" of overlap, then install the snaps and hem the fabric. Voila, removeable shelf covers that provide traction, are washable, and easy to remove - you don't even have to remove the shelf from the cage! You can get fancy, but a snugly fitting sleeve usually works just fine. Seamstress Melissa and the 4 ashbunnies ___ Melissa Litwicki __ [log in to unmask] ___ By the whole newsgroup devoted tennis showing it after scarfing fork and laughters [Posted in FML issue 2025]