I'm curious. I am somewhat impatient about indroducing my weasles to newcomers, since newbies don't come around too often (I have four, adopted throughout the past two years.) The most recent was a rather large 6 mos. old who is roughly the size of my other three combined. I've had him about a month. They all seem to get along great, all sleep cuddled together in a giant ferret mass (Remember Trouble w/ Tribbles, that's kinda the picture when they're all piled together.) Anyway, the new big boy obviously is pretty spunky (what self respecting kit wouldn't be?) He an the littlest girl (about a year old) like to chase and wrestle. She thinks she's his mommy and continually tries to troll the bohemoth. He of course doesn't go for this and they start fighting and chasing. Niether seem overly terrified so I let it take place. The oldest girl (Tiffany) about three years old, on the the first day tried to make him her baby, but he managed to back her in the corner and nip her hard once. She learned extremely quick not to mess with him. Finally, my bestest buddy Watermark, whose now number two in size (he's might be barely two pounds.) seems to like to pick fights with the big boy. He's normally very easy going, and upon their first introduction totally ignored the new guy, actually he ignores most new ferrets he's introduced to. It just seems when they start fighting he makes the most god awful screams and chirps I've ever heard. I only heard him make these noises once before, and that was when he was in trouble, and had pinched himself on an eye screw under a cabinent. I am confused by this screaming, it happens once they've been out of the cage for a while, after they've both explored their surroundings. (we barricade of of three rooms for the to play in). It doesn't appear to be territorial, thery just start play fighting. The intensity of the fighting really doesn't change a whole lot, just the intensity of Watermarks cries. At first I seperated them immediately. Then I noticed that often he was not even screaming when he was being bit. So I let them play it out a little longer thinking that it may help establish a new order. This didn't help. I started "saving" Watermark, but he squirmed until I let go then he proceed to pounce on the new boy who was clobbering him. I've since taken to letting them play through these frackuses, I'll intervene if it looks too rough, but I've never seen blood or bruises (the new boy does have extremely sharp teeth, I know first hand, see the next story). So anyway I was just curious how I should handle this. BTW they don't fight in the cage, and love snuggly in big pile as I mentioned earlier, so I'm basically confused. Next story, My little girl Tiffany, and the new boy (BTW his name is Wolfy) seem to both be very interested in people food, and will go out of their way to find any scrap of edible material (I've found they stached a few sucker sticks, peach pits, lettucescraps, carrots, etc. Anything that can remotely be consume they like to steal. Wolfy doesn't generally eat the stuff, but Tiffy will often try much to my horror. Anyway these two will occasionally be crawling over either my wife or I and start sniffing and poking at us very strangely, especailly out arms, butts, and my love handles. After a few seemingly innocent licks they will chomp down kinda hard, like they are trying to drag us off to their hidey hole. I used to think this behavior was kinda cute when it was little Tiffy doing it, but as I mentioned before, Wolfy has extremely sharp teeth. The poke is more startling than anything, and even though he's drawn blood, it's not malicious biting per say. I don't think they realize they are chomping people, just another organic, very large, potentially tasty treat. I'm not really sure what approach I should take to stop this behavior, I am most concerned because I'm a big guy and occasionally fall asleelp on my couch I don't want to be startled and jump up/roll over and squish one of them. Well hopefully if anything these stories will fall on sympathetic ears, and maybe I'll get a few good suggestions out of it. In any event please share your thoughts with me via the FML so that we can all benifit from each other's experiences. Thanks, Brandon Phillips And the four little people. [Posted in FML issue 2490]