Our own experience with fur fitch stock (years ago) is that they have been bred only to have good fur, sometimes larger size (encountered for instance in a number of Russian ferrets originally from fur stock who were discussed by their people in the past in Ferret-Genetics in Yahoogroups), and for being able to pop out a number of kits for a 2 or 3 years. Health ands longevity were NOT encountered in the ones we knew, and I have heard similar reports about ferrets who are from fur farms or places which had been fur farms. As a result, I doubt that these fitch fur farm ferrets are going to be ferrets who will be able to add positive variation to the gene pool, and could instead do the opposite. Sukie (not a vet) Current FHL address: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html [Posted in FML 5534]
