>From:    MAREE CLAPHAM <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: NZ ferrets hardier?
 
We are not saying that you are wrong nor that yo8u are right.  Just bringing
up some other questions.
 
>It breaks my heart to hear about the thousands of ferrets which develop
>adrenal diseases in America and cant help but wonder if a new focus upon
>introducing new bloodlines/genes to the breedng programmes of domestic
>ferrets could help decrease the prevalence of these such diseases.
 
We are a big part of bringing in foreign ferrets into the US for breeding so
anything we say is not "sour grapes".  We are more experienced than most
with ferret immigrants.
 
If there are millions of ferrets in the US and thousands (though more likely
hundreds) of ferrets in the US that get adrenal problems we need to figure
out the actual precentages affected before we can arrive at meaningful
statistics.  Is this one out of thousand ferrets?  One of ten thousand?
 
How many ferrets are there in New Zealand?  How many of those ferrets would
have to be afflicted to have the same percentages?  Is it as low as 1000?
100?  10?  Even 1?
 
How about English ferrets?  Swedish ferrets?  Australian?  Belgian?
 
We do wonder about these immigrants in the long run.  We are personally
trying to keep some strains "pure" from American crosses and also crossing
some.  But ti will take years before we'll have even a guess on the success
of the experiments.
 
Actually we think some of your questions do beg answers:
 
>* our more natural country lifestyle
 
Not all of the US is a city.  We live on a relatively small farmette of
almost 15 acres.  But this is way back in the country 3/4 of a while from a
paved road.  We think it is probably healtheir but due to less pollutants
and such.
 
>* a climate which allows us to keep them outside
 
Ferrets can be kept out doors in most of the US.  Ferrets in the first half
of this century were almost exclusively out doors and to a large amount
raised in Ohio Northwest of Columbus.  Probably as high a percentage of
ferrets at that time came from there as now come from Marshall Farms.  These
were outdoor ferrets.
 
Ours are indoors but we do not think the "politically correct" mania over
ferrets being in-doors only is necessarily for the benefit of ferrets.  Its
for the benefit of folks that do not distinguish between people and ferrets.
We are not the same.
 
We think you have something here.
 
>* genetic influence from feral ferrets (survival of the fittest)
 
Feral ferrets are not likely to live long enough to develop adrenal problems
or indeed many of the cancers so this is probably not an influence.
 
>*general "harder" attitudes which includes breeding from only healthy
> animals with good genetic background
 
Can't disagree with you here.  Too many ferret breeders go for "pretty show
animals" regardless of other factors.  We are heavily involved with shows
and are glad the AFA for example only puts "pretty coat" as only 5% of the
scoring (lower than other standards I've worked with) GLFA is also low as I
remember but I can't recall whether it is also 5 or 10%.
 
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
http://www.zenferret.com/
mailto:[log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 2213]