printf (Hello world !); Answer to : how can you say a fert is spayed or has been in heat ? You can do it ! Seems I missed the first message about it. Couldn t find it again. How old is tabitha ? Did she loss hair yet ? What is the problem about it ? If she has been in heat, since you got her 7 weeks old, you should have noticed. if you did nothing to stop heat, she would loss plenty of hair and have behaviour problems ( shouting, biting, and,typically walk backwards ), and possibly develop a false pregnacy and the pyometra or something else. This you could not miss. if you didn t notice she have been in heat, and she is 3 years old, she is probably spayed, or you are blind (!) To say if she has been spayed is quite easy. Spayed ferret stinks alot less than entire ones, even females. We are in summer, now, when smell is the strongest. Another sign is hair loss. entire females loss much more hair than spayed one s. Those keep all year long a sort of undercoat. If she is an albino, you should not notice it, but if she is a fitch, the undercoat is white, and not yellow. Hair is softer among spayed females, too ( in this period of year). There is a simple way by palpating, but don t try it until you are very experienced. Surprinsing your vet couldn t tell ! Maybe an echography can do it ? But if you did not notice her heat yet she is probably spayed. Too bad in Usa you do that very very young, the best way to tell this is looking for the cicatrice. it is quite difficult to explain by mail, and so easy to tell by view ! Hope you undestand what I mean. Answer to different kind of ferret : Ferret stinks, ferret bites... ( known folk song) If you put your finger in the cage of an animal the man warned you it is a biter, Don t go look at tigers in the city zoo, they are biters, too ! (Scuse me for the joke, I could not hold myself). For your little ferret, I wonder if this little jill is spayed. This kind of behaviour is very common after heat. Does she eat, and did she loss weight ? Does she shout or cry when she sees you and what does she do with other ferrets ? And last, most of all, does she attack on sight, or only when you approach ? Does she walks backwards ? You could test her for an hormonal dosage. If there is something wrong, the best is to spay her QUICK, for this is very difficult to overcome and very long to recover. Id she comes in heat again soon, she is very likely to die of bone marrow depression. Of course, if you are sure she is payed, this doesn t apply. Then it is only a bad temper, or maybe the man who owned her before you hit her on the nose when she was bad. This is a very nasty habit and makes good biters. [Posted in FML issue 2335]