>From:    Bob Church <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Almost on the Road Again
>I won't comment on that except to say someday the clubs are going to have
>to swallow their pride, bury whatever hatchets they have in each other's
>backs, and unify.  Everyone says we have the third most popular carnivore
>pet, yet we lack a national organization to fight our legal battles, set up
>a standardized terminology, and essentially bleed us all dry in dues to
>support alcoholic ferretcrats.  And don't let ANY club fool you; there is
>NO truely national organization.
 
Unfortunately thats pretty accurate.  The old IFA was a sole organization
way back.  Now all we get is people continually starting their own group
because they can't get along with who ever is leading the next organization.
Its worst here in the DC area where the AFA, LIFE, NAFA, and STAR are all
based.  The local groups are independant of the "national" groups.  Just up
the road a piece you have LOS and FEEL.  A little further and you have the
three NYC area organizations.  Too much ego.  Little willingness to
compromise.  <heavy sigh>
 
I'm especially tired of hearing after an attack on me or anyone else "think
of the ferrets" or "remember how much I've done for ferrets".  Attacking
other ferret folks does no good for ferrets.
 
On the bright side there has been over the past couple years more
co-operation than before.  Credit to Dr. Freddie Hoffman and Diane Rogers
for much of that.  The efforts in Maryland were a good start.  Now if we can
get this pilot effort at unifying to continue we should get somewhere.
 
About them danged colors.... I'll be the first to admit "I don't know" but
am just as convinced we are all unfortunately in the same boat.
 
>I have been discussing colors and patterns with mucho FML people and have
>come to two conclusions.  First, no one agrees on anything, and second, the
>terminology is very inconsistant.
 
Yup!  Big problem.  Every "group" that has tried to "standardize" the
terminology has based it on their pet theories or unfortunately the favorite
"colors" of the people creating the standard.  I do not think any system has
achieved a completeness yet.
 
>Second, color is a continuum from light to dark.  But not all color is
>actually pigment, some is a result of hair texture and translucence.  Also,
>in some mammals, there can be up to seven different gene locations that
>determine color.
 
Ferrets probably use most of them... Or so it would seem.  There are
different genes for guard hair color and undercoat color for sure.  There
are genes that modify the guard hair color in so many different ways and
many of them can co-exist.
 
>Pattern is also a continuum; it doesn't take a rock scientist to
>recognize most patterns are simply modifications of the classic sable.
 
Geology gets brought in?  Never been a geologist though I have helped design
satallites so I've been a rocket scientist.  <grin>
 
>So how about you breeders sharing the stuff with us?
 
What do you want?  I've got one of the larger databases of begats and colors
on my computer.  The problem is since its based on show catalogs it doesn't
show whole litters.  I'll volunteer to expand a database of this.  Being a
programmer with plenty of programmer toys I can beat this through a database
program and generate what ever folks want from it (except I won't be
involved in turning it into any sort of mail list kind of thing - I like
privacy and all).  I can eventually get it web hosted with automatic entry
and tabulations.  More fun than the real work I have <grin>.
 
>Most (or all) of you class albinism as a pattern. [...] Albinism is a
>NON-pattern.
 
Actually they don't.  Thats me.  But we are in semantics here.  I've called
albinoes something not a color and used the term pattern.  My reasoning on
this is that most "patterns" in ferrets are as you say variations on the
polecat pattern.  There are gradiations in darkness of the body: point with
the lightest bodies (aka Siamese) to standard filling a huge range in the
middle to solid with the darkest bodies with respect to the legs (aka self).
All other patterns are variations in white markings.  Albino is a "pattern"
where the white marking cover the whole body.  I agree its a stretch.
Dark-eyed-white is a better example of that "pattern".  Albino is a
non-pattern/non-color.
 
At this point we appear to have colors that go the full range from white to
black passing through grey, brown or both.  But not through simple color.
It takes these pattern "modifiers" to get there so far.  From the beginnning
everyone told us how hard it is to get DEWs.  They are sort of right.  We
got one in our second or third litter (I'd have to check dates) from
breeding a German blooded albino to a light silver (or much roaned black).
The little jill became a DEW herself when the roaning completed.  Okay
diverge into roaning.  There is some genetic key that causes ferrets to have
white hair sprinkled in with the normal dark hairs.  Its typically
progressive over life.  Most of the DEWs are ferrets that have roaned 100%.
Not all (maybe).  It can be expressed as a range from 0% to 100%.  We can
get these DEWs but they so far tend to have problems.  The problems seem to
tag along with the various componants of DEWs rather than being a direct
result of being a DEW so the situation is getting better as "bad" DEWs get
culled.
 
>it is entirely possible to selectively breed an animal so its genes
>express white fur coloration, reduced or removed eye pigmentation, and
>still has an active metabolic pathway to make pigments.
 
Nearly all DEWs have "blue" eyes and pale blue at that.  Blue eyes appear to
be ruby or purplish when you see the red (like in albino) through the blue
iris.  In the ferrets eyes you have less influence of the "whites of the
eyes" than you do in humans so more light gets through a light iris making
the lights redder and the darks blacker in appearance.
[Posted in FML issue 1928]