Poor Annie is probably panicking after she has read the reaction of people on the list to her unaltered ferrets and desire to breed them. I don't think her situation is really that bad - at least she has asked for help. The problem here is she is not experienced with ferrets - and time and asking people for help is going to change that. If she knows what she's doing now or in the future, why shouldn't she breed? Annie has now been warned about the cost and the potential health risks. Breeders out there face these problems and cope, after further research into these problems, perhaps she will decide that she can too. Everyone has got to start somewhere. Now, some facts about keeping breeding ferrets: >It is rare to be able to house hobs and jills together. In my experience, this is not true. Our jills lived full time with a vasectomised hob, and the full hob was also in with them all in the winter. The only fighting was between the jills - jills can be so bitchy! You certainly wouldn't have hobs living together in the mating season - then the fur would fly. Annie would want to keep the hob separate in the mating season until she wanted to breed him to one of the jills, then she would put them together just for the mating. At the moment, if the jill is not in heat the agressiveness is probably more due to the meeting of two strange ferrets. In practice this will mean keeping him separate during the summer months for a year or so. It is not advisable to breed jill until they are fully physically mature. Two years is recommended as the earliest. The hob would probably sill get on ok with the jills in the mating season when they weren't actually on heat, but in my experience it is best to keep them as separate as possible - accidents can happen and it only takes thirty seconds of inattention to wind up with an expectant jill. To keep the jills from getting pregnant before they are mature, Annie will need to find a vasectomised hob, or take them to the vet when they are on head for hormone shots. As for the smell - the hob is going to stink. The jills aren't going to smell too great either. Those are some breeding facts from my experience. I've only bred one litter, and we were lucky enough to have no health problems, so I can't comment there. The hardest thing about breeding from my point of view, was having to sell the babies. It was very difficult watching my beautiful bright-eyed teenage ferrets walking out the door with people will hopefully be good owners. Don't underestimate how hard it can be to give them up. Kylie Queensland, Australia [Posted in FML issue 2739]