>From:    Kelly Cameron <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Year Marshall Farms started early neuters?
>My vet told me yesterday he had a lady come in with a 10 year old ferret,
>that was still in pretty good health and was a Marshall Farms.  I know
>some of you have ferrets that old, but this is the first one I have heard
>of here.
 
Marshall was neutering them at pretty much the same age over ten years ago.
 
We think the whole early neuter debate is mis focused.
 
>From:    Sukie Crandall <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: NOT testing can kill shows -- just as ECE did to some groups
>         years ago
>It has been advanced that testing could destroy shows.  I disagree.  If
>anything, experience shows that the exact opposite is true.  When folks
>became too afraid to go to shows due to possible ECE that DID destroy
>some show groups, completely.  Nailed a few clubs, too.
 
None that we can think of.  Those clubs that went under died for other
reasons.
 
Now there was an effort by some to use ECE and distemper in the same way
Aleutians is being used now to beat "rivals" into submission.  Oddly enough
by the same people.
 
We've been right in the thick of things.  Even seen behind the scenes the
nastiness that goes on with in some organizations.  Most of you would be
very surprised at how over seriously some people take this whole show
thing.
 
No one at all wants diseases to be spread from shows.  But hysteria and
doesn't prevent diseases from spreading.  Nor does misleading information
from one group about how evil everyone else is.
 
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
[Posted in FML issue 3427]