Hi folks, I think we may have hit the wall with Phoebe. For those of you who don't know, Phoebe (aka Phobia) is one of the four ferrets who were retrieved from a now-defunct shelter in Brantford, Ont. To the best of my knowledge, she was raised in a barn by a "breeder" who was selling whole ferrets at flea markets for a dollar apiece. She came to us scared and pregnant, and a week later gave birth to nine kits, of which four survived. At first we figured Phoebe was biting because she was pregnant and feeling protective of herself and the babies. The longer she's at our house, though, the more vicious a biter she becomes. She used to bite when she felt threatened (as best we can tell), but now she's biting (and HARD) whenever there is any bare skin near her. For example, she wanted out of the cage (we're keeping her and her babies separate from the other five ferts) this morning, so I picked her up, then set her down on the floor to run. The first thing she did was lunge for my toe and take a piece out of it. She's been biting the hell out of Rob, and she beats up our other ferrets something terrible -- and she goes out of her way to do it. Even if we're ignoring her, or if the other ferrets are across the room doing something else, she makes a point to come over and draw blood. The only member of our household who's relatively unscathed is the cat, who beat her up the first time she tried to bite him. We've tried being gentle. We've tried long "holding" sessions with Phoebe wrapped in a towel. We've tried ignoring her and leaving her to her own devices. The only things we haven't tried are bathing in Bitter Apple or Tobasco sauce (besides, we don't think the other ferrets would cotton to that, even if it did deter Phoebe). Rob and I are beginning to seriously wonder about Phoebe's ...well, personality disorder. Among other things, we don't know how inbred she is or what her living situation was like before she came to us. Her babies are six weeks old and pretty much nip-trained (by us) already, and seem to be turning out "normal", but we're not sure how that reflects on her. Moreover, we're beginning to wonder if Phoebe's just vicious. We've brought a couple of other biters home, and it turns out they needed dental work (cut canines extracted); once their mouths stopped hurting, they have been nothing but sweethearts. Phoebe's teeth appear to be healthy and in good working order (ask my toe), however. Could any of you who are veterans with extreme biters offer any other suggestions? We'll do anything we can to avoid having her put down; we're also wondering, however, if being in a house with multiple ferrets is part of her stress. Help, please? Thanks much for your suggestions. Kind regards, Kate [log in to unmask] Toronto Internet Ferret Group [Posted in FML issue 2357]