Melissa Barnes wrote >Currently, MF does not have enough ferrets to meet the demand, so they >produce at high rates... there are only four words in that statement that are important. "to meet the demand" Marshall Farms is meeting a demand. Who demands? Pet stores, and ultimately, the consumer. You know what? PET STORES make demands for kits to sell to consumers. Most want them cheap, they want them at their very cutest so they sell the best, and they want a RELIABLE source. If a source such as Marshall Farms does not supply what the pet store demands of them, they will take their business elsewhere and demand the same thing until they find a supplier who *will*. Now, before folks get up in arms, yes, there are many pet stores who do take care of their ferrets. Kudos to them. But there are many many many more who want them fast, young and cute. Though everyone here may think a ferret is *always* cute, there is an age at which the average consumer will be most likely to make that impulse buy, and many stores, particularly large chains that have commands from on high to meet quotas go for that. If the business between Marshall Farms, Path Valley, or ANY of them (and yes, I get *so* tired of hearing the focus on just one of the major business breeders of ferrets), make the demands for the changes...send them older, send fewer, send so they don't die in transit...then the breeders will follow. Period. They want the business, they may care about ferrets or they may not, but the bottom line is that they are a *business*. If the businesses they sell to tell them to start sending older kits, they will not accept kits younger than a certain age, and *make good their demands*, eventually they will change, and a LOT quicker than being attacked by people with outdated information and quoting opinion articles as fact. They'd have to to stay in business. If people REALLY want to change things at the big breeders...change them in the pet stores. 100 signatures, even 300 signatures on a bit of paper means nothing when there are literally *thousands* of people who are potential ferret-purchasers. When the pet stores stop their demands for a constant supply, and start demands for older and fewer kids, then things at Marshall Farms will change. But it can't just be one store. See, they're in business too. And if they don't have kits in because their waiting for a shipment, or the consumer thinks that the kits aren't quite as cute (or bite harder, are not as well behaved, etc. simply because they're older and not just trying to figure out what those things call legs are), then they'll go down the street or across town to buy one from another store. So the challenge is to get *all* stores in an area to demand that WHOEVER they get their ferrets from send fewer, send older, and send better. Even better. Educate the average consumer. And don't spout stuff about "puppy mills" and all that. Educate about *ferrets*. They're NOT like cats and dogs, they're NOT pocket pets. They're fiesty, their rambunctious, they are destructive to homes not properly set up for them, they need vet care, they need space to run around in, they need to be kept safe from things. But until that can happen, the REAL way to change practices at Marshall Farms is to not attack them, but get the pet stores in your area that sell ferrets to change the WAY *they* sell ferrets. Big business breeders like Marshall Farms are, after all, meeting the demand. Sue [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] [Posted in FML issue 3183]