No one is excusing ANY breeder from mistakes made or care not given, but
illness, mutations, disorders, acquired fetal problems, double recessives,
etc.  happen with any breeder's animals (It's which one, rates, when, and
life spans adjusted for living conditions or examined in huge numbers which
will tell whether certain breeders have strains which tend toward certain
health problems more than the norm.  (And why I keep asking breeders here to
post this information and personality info as well as appearance.)) We've
had animals from at least 7 different breeders -- short and long term --
and, of course, each eventually passed away.  Cancers over the age of 6
showed up in those from at least 4 breeders, and juvenile lympho in one.
Lisa, Recessive refers to whether a given allele will be likely to express
itself when paired with another and not in the presence of alleles in other
loci which can suppress the dominant, not with being a common characteristic
in a population which is a population genetics problem.  What you are
referring to is selective breeding which results in some potentially nasty
recessives becoming so standard in a breeding group that doubled recessives
are more likely to show up.  It's why anything derived from a narrow pool
can have difficulties.  Jeff, I am VERY rusty -- have not used that math in
16 years since a tropical neuromuscular illness I picked up in Suriname
forced me to shorten my schooling -- and I was only an undergrad (who during
those years took a year's worth of related grad courses, and worked for an
anotomy department), but I was decent enough at things to be a student
curator and to R.A.  with some primate studies undertaken by a gent who has
himself a McArthur (sp?) so I'm not a slouch, plus I DO have a very handy
high energy physicist by schooling hubby and SHOULD relearn this stuff so if
you think I'd be useful I'm here.
 
Silly stuff: Paw Paw, Spotty wants to know how to say "MFMF".  Is he a "Miff
Miff" or a "Mofff Mofff" He can't pronounce the other options.  Pam, okay,
my name backwards is eikus and I sure CAN cuss.  I am sure that I like the
cut of BIG's GIB.  But who is Lisa as ill as, and is Ela destined to become
a future famous brew master?  (We knew her when...) BTW, I have a friend who
specialized in the actions of hip muscles and related structures named
Stern.
 
Lay off Bob, folks.  I have had to dissect parts of primates I knew and
loved after they were lost to illness or age and it's a horrible experience,
but sometimes necessary.  Also, having enough comparative skeletal material
will help future furries just as pathology samples, and post mortems do.
You know how hard it is to put those first shovelsful of soil over a ferret
you have lost, but you have to do it, don't you?  (Sent you a private post,
Bob; if you need any of those aids just let us know.)
 
Re: the dreaded "wraaaaakkkkk, wraaaaaakkkkkkk".  Hjalmar was a real cry
baby when he was young, and it did not help to put him in with others
because he woke them up moving around, so finally we'd bed him down with our
just doffed t-shirts, and bedding for the other's cages plus some cuddly toy
mousies.  It helped, but mostly he had to outgrow it.
 
Sukie
[Posted in FML issue 1695]