>From:    "marie i. schatz" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Marshal Farms
>I'll be right up front and say that I'm an animal mill hater.  That said
>I'll try to stick to what seem to be the facts and then explain why I
>dislike mills.
 
We'll stick to our statement that when you use the term mill to describe
the truly bad puppy and kitty mills you shouldn't use that same term to
describe the better ferret ranches.  They have very little in common.
There certainly are ferret mills but Marshall is not one of them.  You
can still choose to dislike ferret ranches and ferret mills.
 
>If (this is by far from exact) , under artificial lighting you could
>say get a female ferret to breed 4 litters a year, and each female had
>say 8 kits live and they produce 80,000 the math comes to......2,500
>females plus some males, plus the kits that are around for up to 6
>weeks.  A pretty big operation.  Pretty wearing on the females too
 
It would be very wearing on the jills if it was true.  But its not.  I'll
guarantee you that.
 
Read the Fox book more carefully than the ranter that started the rumor
about so many litters a year and you'll see that primaparous only jills get
the extra litters in a year.  That is the first breeding year they MIGHT
get three.  Normally two in 12 months.  but that really isn't two a year.
The second year they get 1 litter but its sooner than 12 months after the
last from the year before.  Yes we got that information directly from
Marshall Farms.  And yes I believe Dr. Bell who gave us that information.
 
>Marshal Farms is just the biggest and most well known so most people
 
Not most people.  We shouldn't demean the ranches by making them out to be
that identical.
 
>That said I don't like any type of breeder, small, large, dog, cat,
>bunny, ferret etc.  that breeds a COMPANION animal for profit.
 
I feel the opposite.  I wish that it was profitable to breed companion pets
while doing it "right" so that we'd have professionals that could devote
their entire time to the animals rather than squeezing them in after they
get home from their real jobs.
 
You point out a whole list of problems but I come to the opposite
conclusion.  It would be better if the breeder could afford the time
to do the things you say aren't done.  If they have to be amateurs then
they have other jobs to prevent them doing it the way you yourself think
they should.
 
That shipping container doesn't sound too bad really.  Think about how much
space a human really gets on a Greyhound bus travelling across the country.
Its less proportionally.  Ferrets do not need food every couple hours.  If
they had more water available you'd merely have it spilled and end up with
wet uhappy ferrets that would be more prone to disease from wet conditions.
There isn't a wonderful answer - just not as bad.  The chips were probably
aspen.  If they used cloth it would NOT be as healthy for the kits.  The
aspen will absorb more water yet remain "dry" to the ferrets than cloth
which gets wet and stays wet.  The wood will absorb the unavoidable urine
far far better than cloth.  A pellet bedding would get out of the cage far
more than the larger size chips.  Things that are bad in one situation just
might be good in another.
 
I'd advise you to drop the hatred and view the situation objectively.
While you filter everything through hate you will not be able to achieve
results in improving conditions.  I'm quite serious in this.  Marshall
Farms will immediately ignore just about everything you have to say because
you start off with the statement that you hate them and consider them akin
to the midwest puppy mills.
 
At a puppy mill you have too many animals crammed into a yard with no
veterinary care whatsoever.  Animals are bred until they die.  Food stuffs
are minimal - just enough to keep the dogs alive but not enough to thrive.
The dogs they produce are "junk" by breed standards.  For example their
pomeranians are way too large because it makes it easier to breed more.
 
On the other hand, Marshall's food while not in our opinion as good as
Totally Ferret is a good food.  They developed it to produce the best
ferrets that they could.  They designed it for their own use and then
turned it into a product.  There is no other entity in the world that knows
as much about ferrets as Marshall Farms.  Read how much of the information
(particulary the old edition) in the Fox book comes from Marshall Farms.
That shows that Marshall is doing the research on ferrets.
 
-bill
--
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
http://www.zenferret.com/
mailto:[log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 2715]