>You aren't even close to the most anti-Marshall person around. I like
>Path Valley, too, and two of my ferrets came from there. They arrived
>here carrying the ECE virus and gave it to my Marshall ferret. Since
>they were flown here directly from the farm, Path Valley had to be
>infected with ECE at the time.
 
We also had an ECE outbreak after having PV ferrets come almost directly
here (hand carried with only a stop over at the vet's so it is possible
that they picked it up there instead), but that was over 4 years ago, so
I strongly expect they would have followed up on that since they do care
about ferrets and they were quietly informed at the time.
 
>>P.S.- MF sells ferrets for fur.  Enough Said.
>
>And that is just plain bulls#!t.  Nobody in the US raises ferrets for fur.
>It just wouldn't make economic sense.  A fitch pelt on the hoof may be
>worth $1.  Why waste time, effort and food raising inferior fur when you
>can raise mink just as cheaply.  It is my understanding that one of the
>Scandinavian countries is the only place in the world where any fitch are
>raised and there is much pressure to end it there.
 
There actually is one large farm that used to sell fur in recent decades
but it was not MF nor was it PV, and I am not saying which one it was
because if they can instead make more money selling them as pets it saves
ferret lives to continue their switch-over.
 
>Oh No, Not Again!  BIG, please don't allow this AR patter to start again.
 
Question: what does "AR" mean, Rick?
 
Folks, DO remember that YOU can get things like UP-TO-DATE federal
inspection records; the procedure can be found by searching the FML
archives at http://listserv.cuny.edu/archives/ferret-search.html
(Wish I'd had that addy handy last night for something...)  There is a
lot of out-dated and even false stuff out there which derives from a few
people's personal biases and has more to do with attacking one farm than
with improving all farms even though all could use improvement, and has
nothing to do with shutting down back-yard breeders who are the true
horror stories, and nothing to do with helping private breeders further
improve their methods for the sake of the ferrets.
[Posted in FML issue 3508]