The Ashland Humane Society let me see the ferret this afternoon. The poor fellow. He is a neutered chocolate male, at least 4-5 years old is my guess, but his teeth appear so worn and dirty it's hard to tell. His coat is the worst I've ever seen on a ferret, dry and brittle, and dull colored from dirt. He appears very dehydrated, but not terribly underweight. He has no muscle. And he has this huge hard growth on the top of his head. If it is a tumor, it is a boney one. And so big the skin on the top of his head is stretched. I didn't detect any other lumps or bumps on his body, but his abdomen seemed unusually hard. I didn't see any signs of fleas or other parasites, and when I commented on that to the woman there, she said she had been surprised by it too, given had been maggots in his cage. His ears didn't look too bad either, but I forgot to bring q-tips to clean them. I started off by giving him about 20 ccs of duck soup and some ferretone, then my daughter Joy helped me trim his nails. Then another 20 ccs of soup. He took it readily. He was quiet and passive, except he started getting wiggly after I finished feeding him. I put him in his cage and he used his litter box like a good boy. Then he used the litter to wipe his face too. Sigh... I asked the woman if there was anyway they could give me temporary custody of him to take care of him. It's too far away for me to make daily trips to feed him duck soup (almost an hour drive). She said she had been thinking the same thing. She would make phone calls tomorrow (I think to the prosecutor's office) to see if that could be arranged. So we wait and see what happens next. Linda Iroff The Raisin Retreat Oberlin, Ohio http://www.oberlin.edu/~liroff/ncfs.html [Posted in FML issue 2476]