>From:    Karen Castro <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: New family member / questions
>1. In normal light her eyes look black but in the sun they are actually a
>really dark red, is this common?
 
Many ferrets have what are called ruby eyes.  If you look carefully you can
see that the eyes are really blue.  Most dark ferrets have green or brown
eyes and albinoes have clear eyes.  Like a human the color is in the iris
and the pupil is black.  The size of a ferrets eyes are such that the color
is often hard to see.  The eyes seem black when little light can get in and
reflect out.  Albinoes eyes seem red because light gets all the way into the
light and the red from inside the eye is visible.  The ruby eyes are from
(usually) blue eyes with low pigment density (color dilution) and the red
and blue become a purpled ruby.  This is why the AFA and other standards
refer to Dark-Eyed Whites instead of Black-Eyed Whites.
 
>2.  She has a little grey on her tail, will this go away as she gets older
>and is this also common for BEW?  Her mom was a shetland mix and her dad
>was a silver mitt.  It's interesting that she came out white.
 
What you have is really a dark eyed white pattern.  7 weeks is too early by
our opinion to leave a mother.  We often don't fully seperate the jills and
their kits.  They should be on a mush.  Mix KMR (Kitten milk replacer) with
broken up or ground kibble for a few weeks.  You can also use a high quality
canned food available only from a vet called Science Diet A/D.  We mix
Totally Ferret kibbles in with the moist canned food starting at 5 or 6
weeks and gradually increasing the amount of the kibble until it is only dry
food.  Marshall's, 8in1 or Iam's Kitten would also be suitable dry foods.
 
To get a DEW It loks to me like you need a combination of Mitt, Waardensburg
(blaze-shetland-badger or panda), dilute (what makes champagne's (cinnamon)
lighter than chocolates), and roan (white guard hairs mixed in with the
dark).  You will also get any part not strong enough to cancel out all the
colr and patterns.  The AFA term DEWP corresponds to platinum or light
silver in some other standards.  These are much more common than true DEW.
Our very best DEW is really a DEWP because of a mere dozen dark hairs.
 
None of this should be taken that you have a plain old run of the mill
ferret though.  You asked about losing the dark.  That will probably take a
couple years but she probably will.  She might actually get darker this year
first.
 
>3. Since she is cutting teeth, the breeder said she was 'stressing'.  The
>area around her anus appears red and slightly swollen but she said it would
>go away when she started eating 'hard' food.
 
I suspect that this is partially from not being properly weaned.  Mama jills
help their kits through the transition.  This isn't the way it 'should' be.
Most vets never see ferrets this young but this jill is closer to growing.
the second set than the first.  I highly disagree with the the 'stressing'
bit.  I really can't make a veterinary call though but I don't remember this
from any of our kits.
 
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
[Posted in FML issue 1489]