Hi. We're happily acculturating a beautiful new female ferret, Sabrina, to our home, which is owned by an established male ferret, Rorty. We have one of the great big multi-level "condo" cages in which Rorty has been living for a good portion of his life -- it's about five feet tall, with two removable levels and ladders, etc. Once Rorty was big enough to climb effectively, we moved him to this cage, and I arranged hammocks in such a way that he couldn't fall far without hitting one... and everything was hunky-dory. Rorty is a big, healthy ferret for a Marshall Farms (we didn't know there was any other kind when we got him, and no, he's not a wimp ;)), and has never had any trouble navigating the cage. Sabrina, on the other hand, is significantly smaller than Rorty (she's also a Marshall Farms, by way of a very nice shelter), and while she doesn't have much trouble climbing, etc., it is much easier for her to fall through hammock-less spaces due to her smaller size. This is compounded by the fact that Rorty is still in "let's jump the newbie" mode occasionally, and has a tendency to knock her off of shelves/hammocks while playing rough. The obvious solution to the problem was to take out the shelves, and the hammocks that were tall enough to pose a danger (in my mind... I'm pretty protective). Essentially now we have a very big, very expensive one-level cage. My question is this -- how do you deal with a small new ferret, or ferrets who play rough, in a multi-level cage? I read every now and then about ferrets peacefully coexisting in condos, and I'm curious as to how you keep them from tossing each other off of the top levels. Ours are happy with the new one-level arrangement, and get ample extra playtime to compensate for any loss of exercise, but it seems a shame to have these nice fun levels and ladders and hammocks and not be able to use them for fear of one of the fuzzbutts getting injured. The first time I heard Sabrina go *thunk*, I nearly had a coronary and yanked the high stuff out immediately. Any advice that anyone who has experience with this could provide would be greatly appreciated. Otter Driver [Posted in FML issue 2659]