From Sukie:
>Oh, Selina, I want to get that book now!
 
it's a terrific book.
 
>Vastly asymmetrical head coloration is often associated with aortic
>malformation.
 
does anybody know of a way that we can measure it?  I'll be curious to
measure the symmetry in my ferrets to see if the more symmetric ones are
healthier.
 
From Darrin
>requires some element of inbreeding... so erggghh... now we can't even
>breed for good natured ferrets..  LOL..  but sadly somewhat true...
>as breeding for docility, is essentially the same as breeding for
>stupidity... you need to breed out all the instinctive and natural fears
>and "logic" built into an animal, and are therefore picking some of the
>"worst" of the breed, ones that would normally not survive, so as to get
>"stupid"... or rather, Docile, friendly, no fear, will live with a
>dangerous human that I should normally be afraid of, type pet.
 
the book mentioned an interesting breed of cattle.  normally cattle that
are bred for docility are terrible mothers, they don't take care of their
calves properly.  the ones that do tend to be more fearful.  however,
there is/was a farmer in the states that culled his cattle the following
way: if the mother cannot defend her calf from coyotes, the line is
culled.  and if a hungry calf that was just weaned refused to take food
from human hands after two days, it is culled.  the result was calm
cattle that are very good mothers.  apparently this herd was one that led
researchers to believe that fearfulness and social reinstatement comes
from seperate genes.  now, I don't know that being good mothers equates
health..  but it does seem like we should be able to breed ferrets that
are good hunters but also friendly to people.  genes seem very
complicated, and we are probably simplifying too much.
 
>whether or not stupidity is directly related to other health issues,
>seems unlikely, unless it is part of a syndrome..  .simply because
>stupidity is not hereditary ( in the wild)...ie: stupid animals die..
>.quickly ( sorry to sound harsh) , but the truth of the matter is,
>breeders would not pick those inherently stupid ( ie: those that have a
>syndrome or such that has other associated illnesses), but would rather
>pick those that perhaps, are not as "smart" as the others but still
>healthy... thus breeding "healthy" but silly animals, who are then easy
>to domesticate.  (ie: think of any group of ferrets, there is always at
>least one, who is friendlier and perhaps a bit of a lap ferret, then the
>others....it doesn't mean they are genetically unhealthy, simply that
>they are friendlier... so you should breed them (with other friendly
>ferts)..  and you may end up with more friendly lap ferrets..  maybe..
>as some of its behavior is upbringing, training, etc... but some of it
>is simply the genetics of those particular ferts..
 
in Belyaev's farm fox experiments, they only bred "tame/friendly" foxes,
and the health effects were not noticed till a few generations later, and
I'm not sure it was possible to breed healthiness back in.
 
>However, if they are friendly and a lap ferret only because they have
>some genetic issue or a health problem..  then don't breed..
 
there's the question of when you bred and when you cull... suppose you
bred a jill at 1 year old, and then at 4 she got heart dieease and
arthritus and all sorts of fun stuff.  you'll need to spay, and all her
descendents and descendent's descendents to cull properly, and by then
you may not own all of them.  if the health problem or genetic issue
don't show up till a lot later, when do you say don't breed?  you'll
need a huge founding stock to start, and cull a lot initially, until
you are left with relatively healthy ones.  that's a big undertaking.
 
>That way, you will get healthy, but "stupid"...ooops ..  I mean
>domesticated, friendly house pets..
>
>In order to return them to the wild, you will then have to breed them
>with the wildest, biggest, most cunning mates, to get those instincts
>back.
 
there were also studies showing you can't bred wildness back into
domesticated breds, from the book.
 
From Rebecca
>Temple Grandin??  ::Doing a dance and spinning in circles all a twitter::
>Do you know who she is?  She is a severely autistic author.
 
she's a cool lady.  I think she got a new book out on autism too.  here
are a couple of webpages for those interested
    http://www.templegrandin.com/
    http://www.grandin.com/
 
>I've thought about the tameness issue with ferrets quite often.  I've
>battled with my own thoughts such as Marshall Farms ferrets seem to have
>the best dispositions, but then I think about how robust some of the
>other stock in the world seem to be.  I've often thought this, but I have
>no idea if it has any basis.  Considering what you said, it looks like it
> might?
 
I'm mostly paraphrasing the book, so there's a chance I may be
misinterpreting some ideas.  but the studies do seem to show breeding
by selecting tameness result in various problems (with the exception of
the cattle example I mentioned above).
 
>Symmetry in animals has long been known to be connected to good health.
>Discover magazine reported on a study a few years ago regarding symmetry
>and humans.  Humans pick people with symmetrical faces over asymmetrical
>faces.  They state them as being more "attractive".  This is an innate
>behavior.  In the wild, animals pick their mates accordingly ... this is
>part of natural selection.  And this is why so many wild animals have
>more symmetrical features rather than domestic animals.  Cool stuff.
>Yah, it would be neat if ferret breeding focused more on this.  And yes,
>there are hodgepodge ways of measuring this in ferrets.  Good ferret
>judges measure such things in ferret shows.  In fact, I understand that
>it counts for a lot of points.
 
I need a way to measure.  all ferrets are attractive :).  do you know
how judges measure this?  any judges on the list?
 
Selina
[Posted in FML issue 4691]