Food lodged in palate: Boy, over the years I think we've seen just about any shape get lodged at times. Some individuals are more prone to having it happen -- narrower palate or perhaps torae. Fritter used to be very inclined that way, so we first just moved her hand near her mouth when we'd free pieces. Then we started putting her hand in her mouth and moving it as if she was dislodging a piece after the fact. Then we moved to actually moving her hand into her own mouth and dislodging the piece. She was very startled! She realized, though, that SHE could do it herself and ever since that was able to free her own pieces as soon as they caused any problem. Modern Ferret: You all know that this is our favorite ferret magazine by a wide margin, and we do consider Mary and Eric to be friends, but I have to agree that I don't like overly much of a "home page" feel -- just a touch. Still, I sure don't think of that as an "error" -- more of a taste difference. Mary and Eric are in a weird position: a number of people think they have a huge staff and tons of corporate money while it's actually a small home business up against industrial-strength competition which already has a decades-long "in" with large distributors. I think maybe they wanted people to understand this, that's all. Haven't asked them, so don't know if that's it or not. Anyway, I DON'T agree with the poster's statement which equated the various ferret magazines. We've had a great many years of experience with ferrets. Modern Ferret has editors who KNOW and CHERISH ferrets and ferret people. The OTHER ferret magazines have editors who don't know ferrets (and some comments have sounded from time to time like they don't much like them) and in between the articles from people who DO know ferrets they tend to intersperse ones from non-ferret-owning writers. When such people don't check their sources, and the editors who are supposed to check for accuracy don't know ferrets errors wind up introduced. Sometimes editing has created errors in pieces which were correct as sent. Other times photos have been doctored to become dangerous to the legislative push in CA. CA letter writers have not had their identities protected. Once medical information was so incredibly wrong that it create a flurry of people trying their hardest to notify FML and club members as fast as possible so that ferrets would not die as a result, and it wasn't simple printing error like a misplaced decimal point. Those are ALL mistakes which Modern Ferret just plain would NOT commit, because Mary and Eric DO care deeply about ferrets and ferret people, and they KNOW their stuff. To Steve and I caring and accuracy mean a HUGE amount -- in fact, they make the difference between buying and decrying. We'd happily buy the entire range of magazines if the ones with the problems tried harder to correct them! They COULD become as accurate and caring as Modern Ferret IF they bothered to do accuracy checks with those who actually KNOW ferrets (or got an editor who knows ferrets) and used some common sense about FFZ situations. (Oh, by the way, there are some folks right here on the FML whose ferrets get along with rabbits. Then again, many don't, but it's not a hard and fast thing. If you want a real laugh search back a few years for the post about someone whose ferret adopted a house mouse!) Gads, I've got to get to those letters to Ferret Usa advertisers I was going to send, but free time has been a scarce commodity. I think it's very good that people let others know their assorted opinions on magazines and other products -- when those are listened to they result in better products and better products can't help but be better for our ferrets. From knowing them since they were novices I can honestly say that Mary and Eric are folks who are always open to learning and who value the opinions of others, and Steve and I consider their magazine a bargain. [Posted in FML issue 2640]