A number of questionable statements have been made here recently in defense
of Marshall Farm's euthanization policies.
 
1. >Marshall Farms is not a ferret mill in the same sense as puppy mills.<
 
If a puppy mill is primarily defined by the fact that breeding stock are
kept all their lives in cages, rarely or never let out to exercise,
effectively denied human companionship, and euthanized when their most
productive period is behind them, then it looks to us Marshall Farms is
*exactly* what the term ferret mill implies.
 
2. > If Marshall Farms was to disappear the market for ferrets would not go
>down but smaller operations would be formed to take its place.  These would
>be like the ferret mills....  The ferret mills that would inevitably form
>would still have the problem of what to do with ferrets that could no longer
>be 'productive'.  <
 
Smaller operations already exist.  The implication is that small breeders
would do the same or worse as MF.  We think this comment does a great
disservice to small breeders.  Most of them, not being multimillion dollar
industries, personally care for each fuzzy member of their family.  They
also typically won't sell their ferrets to people unless they trust them to
take good care of them.
 
We personally know dozens of breeders, and don't know a single one that
euthanizes stock, keeps breeders in cages all the time, "culls" litters, or
euthanizes runts or sickly kits.  But we would certainly like to know if
anyone is aware of other breeders that engage in such practices -- to put
out an alert to steer innocent buyers away from them.
 
3. >They could not afford the onsite veterinary services.  They could not
>provide as good a diet.<
 
MF has only one veterinarian responsible for maintaining something like
10,000 breeders and overseeing the births and spay/neuter of on the order of
100,000 kits per year. A small breeder with a good vet half an hour's drive
away just doesn't suffer all that much by comparison.  As for diet, if you
are a small breeder and can't afford proper ferret food, you should not be a
breeder.
 
The implication that MF has "higher quality" ferrets is also misleading.
While MF ferrets generally do have sweet temperaments, every MF ferret that
has ever been through our rescue has died of cancer, most fairly young,
except for one who is slowly dying now.  Ferrets we have bought from small
breeders have generally lived to a ripe old age, and some have been
blue-ribbon show quality as well.  It seems clear that MF doesn't have any
way to tell how long their closed-colony stock survives, since they don't
keep stock on the premises long enough to find out.
 
4. >Their would still be a demand for research animals.  Somebody would
>breed them - there are people to do anything that involves money.<
 
Yes, demand would still be there.  But we wouldn't cater to it.  Neither
would any of the breeders we know.  We don't want the blood of baby ferrets
OR their mothers on our conscience.
 
5. >We can wish all we want but money and profit are the main reasons people
>do anything...Like them or not Marshall Farms is part of the world we live
>in.  We won't get them shutdown. We need to co-operate with them because
>they ARE FERRETS to most  of the country.<
 
Money and profit have nothing to do with why humane activists have been
trying for decades, sometimes successfully, to get these kinds of pernicious
practices stopped.  The fact that today there are at least SOME laws against
cruelty to animals is primarily due to the missionary work such activists
have done, sensitizing the general public to unconscionable abuses whose
only justification was economics.  That is why the economic argument cuts
both ways: if people reject MF, and refuse to buy ferrets or paraphernalia
from them until they clean up their act and quit murderning their stock, MF
will either clean up its act, or go belly up.
 
As a shelter we will continue to take in MF ferrets. But we will not buy one
at a pet store, or purchase any other MF product, until they eliminate the
cruelty and needless death that goes into their production system.
 
Howard and Ann Davis
ACME Ferret Company Rescue & Information Service
[Posted in FML issue 1305]