Debate on whether ferrets are easy to care for... Depends on the owner. How much do you, as a ferret owner, feel is hard work??? A few years ago my husband bought me a pair of guinea pigs. They were so sweet, and I wanted to do all I could for them. I joined a list just like this one on guinea pigs. Almost everyone on that list felt the same as most people here. Only they felt that way about their guinea pigs. To them, guinea pigs where the most special animal that God placed on Earth. No other animal, ferrets included, could compare to these sweet, lovable, intelligent creatures. And also no other animal needed such special care to keep them happy and healthy. You also had to be a very special person to deserve the right to care for one of these sweet fuzzballs. Did I find guinea pigs hard to care for??? YES!!! But only because after we adopted them did we realize that I, their main caregiver, am very allergic to them. Being in the same room with them causes me to sneeze and my eyes to water and itch uncontollably. Handling them causes me to break out in hives. What did I do because of this allergy??? I kept the guinea pigs of course. After all I had made a committement to them the second I took them into my home. Every day I cleaned their cage, fed them, and even handled and played with them. Once all that was done it was time for a long hot shower. I did this up until they passed away of old age. So, IMHO, guinea pigs are far harder to care for than ferrets. It all depends on the individual human. Next... For what it is worth, I agree with Bill Killian. A loving home, IMHO, is better for a ferret than an over crowded shelter. Even if that home may not meet the high standards of the shelter. And again IMHO, (not neccesarily Bill's) most of the standards are just too high. If I was a first time ferret owner and went to a shelter to adopt a ferret and was refused because of my answers on an adoption form, and if I really wanted a ferret, I would just go buy one from a pet store. So sometimes you may be doing more harm to the ferrets by keeping them in shelters. In such a situation a ferret in a shelter could have gone to a loving home, but instead because of the shelter owners oppinion of an individual that ferret is still in a shelter cage and another 7 week old kit had been bought at a pet store and taken into a loving, caring home. Marshall Farms just made another dollar. Dianne [Posted in FML issue 2860]