Several places supply ferrets for research.

Two of those places also supply the pet market: Marshall Farms and
Triple F. Those are according to some research supply sites I saw a few
years ago so thing may have changed. Years ago, a competitor (which
sells kits way too young) of those two farms told me that Triple F once
was a fur farm but i have ***never checked*** to see if that statement
is accurate, so it could be just plain wrong. I know that Marshall
Farms was NEVER a fur farm.

***Some*** of the things that ferrets are used to study in research
with some adoption info I have read here on the FML through the decades
or elsewhere:

veterinary instruction (and these usually wind up treated well
afterward and often adopted out)

veterinary research to help pet ferrets or to help BFFs (ditto above
on treatment and adoption when the disease type permits)

intubating human infants (and some places adopt these out afterward)

influenza vaccines (some of these are adopting out afterward depending
on research facility, the type of influenza studied, etc.)

I have not heard anything about the following in terms of later
adoption:

adrenal disease for humans as well as for ferrets (a huge amount of the
adrenal data on ferrets was actually done for human medical studies)

albino eye function (ferrets are often used to study this topic for
human health needs)

an assortment of human respiratory diseases (except colds, of course,
since ferrets don't get colds) and especially lower respiratory
including cigarette damage

some brain functions and "wiring"

some hearing research

the esophageal sphincter

some toxicology work

etc.

Personally, I'd like to see a better match between numbers of ferrets
and demand for ferrets so that neither researchers who can adopt out
ferrets and shelters would have any trouble finding homes for all the
ferrets, but as the saying goes "It ain't gonna happen."

Conditions at research facilities vary a lot. I used to work with
primates in one. We had wonderful conditions for the apes, monkeys and
prosimians. The researchers cared about them and the university had a
good veterinarian who placed animal physical and mental health first.
Later the university changed to a vet who insisted on placing human
health first which meant undermining the conditions for the animals,
so those same researchers went to finding as many alternative homes
for the animals as possible. (I was offered a very elderly howler who
was over 30 years of age, and later a very elderly gibbon, both of
whom I knew well and enjoyed as individuals but i simply don't have the
conditions they would need for their own health, and in NJ very special
permits are needed to have primates -- for excellent reasons -- even if
it is just a situation of providing an exceedingly elderly animal with
some special care for the final months or years, so I had to say "No."
though I didn't want to.)

There are other places which are true horror stories.

So, just know that both extremes and everything between exist.

[Posted in FML 6185]