Erika, very good point indeed.
 
I am not a supporter of Marshall Farms by any stretch of the imagination,
and by not buying their products, not only do I keep my dollars out of
that particular wallet, but I also provide higher quality toys, food, etc.
to my ferrets.  Works out well, don't you think?  :-)
 
The point of my post was not to support MF, though it also wasn't to
bad-mouth them.  My post was to point out that the baby ferrets produced
by this company can't be thrown into the same catagory as the accesories
and other products, and for one simple reason.  They are living, breathing,
loving animals.  The moment that any anti-MF activist allows these
creatures to become statistics is the very moment their struggle becomes
hypocrisy.
 
If we boycott the products, and work towards making animal testing **for
other than legitimate medical purposes** less prevalent, or practical,
then MF will have less money to work with, and so will be able to produce
fewer ferrets.
 
If we work toward educating potential ferret owners everywhere, letting
them know they have more options than a pet store, making sure that they
are aware of the care requirements, etc., we will go far in cutting down
on the number of ferrets sold by pet stores.  Currently, MF does not have
enough ferrets to meet the demand, so they produce at high rates, send
kits too early, we all have heard these stories from various sources.
Well, if we could turn even a small percentage of potential owners to
shelter ferrets, we could curb MF's production without the potential of
kits abandoned at the pet store level, as I discussed.
 
No matter how we may hate the alleged shortcomings of MF, no matter how
much some of us would like to put them out of business all together, we
must accept the fact that they ARE in fact in business.  And one of their
businesses is making businesses.  (Pun intended.) Until some point in the
future where MF decides, for some reason, to quit breeding ferrets, we MUST
acknowledge that they DO, and that these ferrets are just as deserving, and
just as needy of our love as any other breeder's ferrets.  Becuase we don't
like MF is no good reason to abandon these kits.  As I discussed above,
there are several options which would gradually curb the production
demands, and who knows, eventually this might just do the trick.  But I'd
like to compare this to quiting smoking.  Cold turkey works sometimes, but
usually its best to do it in steps.  Just my 2 cents.  (If 2 cents were
really 2 cents, Bill would be rich by now.)
 
Melissa
www.geocities.com/lostferrets
[Posted in FML issue 3182]