Dear ferret folks! SunFerret Shelter & Rescue has depended upon your gracious donations of not only money, but food, hammocks, medications, etc., to keep our shelter afloat and without them we would not be able to continue to help the ferrets that come into our shelter who not only require basic care, but surgery for illnesses as well as spay/neuter and medications. For your support we thank you wholeheartedly and pray that it will continue. Currently, we are in need as our bank account is dangerously low (under $300) and we are still in debt for vet bills in excess of $1000. Our shelter has taken in 8 ferrets in the past few months, and although this is not a great number, for our small shelter it exceeds what we normally have in terms of flow into and out of our shelter. Three of these ferrets had to be neutered and the owners check for $60 that covered the surrender fee bounced (it was written on a closed account) and of course they are no longer at the address they gave us. In addition, it cost $60 per ferret to have them spayed, plus $35 per ferret to update vaccinations (they never had any), so we are out of pocket $375 for these three alone. We did manage to find them a home through another shelter, but the adopters have not paid the adoption fee for which we asked only that they cover the cost of neutering the ferrets by sending payment directly to our vet. As of yet, our vet has not received the fees and it has been over a month now, so I'm assuming we'll have to fight to get it. Obviously, we will no longer accept this form of adoption and will ask for the fee directly in the form of a check made out to our vet. We will also have to check for fund availability before any ferret is adopted out. As you can see, we are in the whole and getting deeper, so we need your help. Totally Ferret has been gracious enough to donate 18 cases of Totally Ferret Food to our shelter, with one condition. They ask that we pay for shipping which costs $294. We can obviously use the donation, but due to lack of funds to pay for the shipping we won't be able to accept it without help. We are asking if there is anyone out there who would be willing to donate in part or in whole the funds to pay for it. We know it is a large amount of money for any one person, but are hoping that perhaps several individuals might get together and pool their money into a larger single donation. If you are willing to do so, please send your donation to SunFerret Shelter & Rescue PO Box 443 Ferndale, CA 95536-0443 Attn.: Totally Ferret shipping fund. We are also in need of hammocks which seem to wear out or disappear quickly, since the ferrets that are adopted out go with any "gear" that they have. The best one's seem to be those made with the arctic fleece and attached to strong metal closed hook type closures. Unfortunately, those made with string closures tend to either fall off in the wash or the strings are chewed in half by many of the ferrets, turkeys that they can be. Again, we want to thank everyone who has so graciously donated to our shelter in the past. We look forward to your continued support in the future! Sincerely, Suni Parker SunFerret Shelter & Rescue [Posted in FML issue 2734]