DONNA AUSTIN:
I'm not a vet but in our dealings with vets most are more familiar with
altered animals in the home.  Breeders are more famialiar with ferrets in
the home.
 
Information from Pam Grants shelter show that it is possible whole animals
live a bit longer than late alters which in turn might live longer than
early alter (pet store usually) animals.
 
BUT whole males are NOT compatible with sharing living space with other
ferrets for about half the year.  While in rut they are too aggressive to
ALL other ferrets.  They also STINK!  Urine is their favorite perfume.  The
secrete extra oils (shich is where most of a ferrets aroma comes from in the
first place).  While in rut they will drastically drop body weight.  Most of
the tweaks we do in ferret diet is to deal with whole males losing weight.
Dr. Williams mentioned most ferrets don't need diets but I think this is
partially because he doesn't have whole males like us breeders - they can be
porkers.  We'd recommend neutering your whole male.
 
Rudy (else where in this issue(?):
How I would register ferrets in my list is the starting color.  Most of our
ferrets start with a color as a summer coat while kits.  (After the kit coat
that is.) The lightening of silver mitts (and some other ferrets) is an
expected process.  I personally would like to know the starting color for a
ferret as a breeder.  The Roaning process (adding of white guard hairs
replacing dark ones) should be a part of the color/pattern.
 
Maybe eventually the registry database will evolve into a checklist of
modifiers in addition to other information stored.  We usually refer to Spot
(Bodhisattva) as a blaze even while he is in panda mode.  He's called Spot
because he has a spot right in the middle of his blaze.
 
AFA WEBSITE:
The American Ferret Association has a World Wide Web site at
"http://www.worldaccess.com/afa/".  Like all web sites I guess you'd say
this is still under construction.
 
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
[Posted in FML issue 1392]