Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!
 
Well, it seems that every few months, with a new crop of new members,
certain individuals insist upon reiterating the points against Marshall
Farms.
 
And once again, as the debate rages on, I get more and more upset by the
seeming lack of sanity.  And once again, I feel a need to point some
things out.
 
Point #1) Regarding PETA.  Despite what certain individual members of
PETA might have done to help certain members of the FML, PETA remains an
extremist organization.  As such, they cannot be trusted.  They believe
that people shouldn't have pets at all.  Do you REALLY want to support
them?  As an extremist organization, one cannot trust ANY statistics,
etc., that come from there.  In fact, one shouldn't trust statistics at
all.  The main reason is that ANY statistics can be twisted to fit
support ANY what organization using them wants them to say.
 
Point #2) I cannot believe someone suggested none of us every buying
Marshall Farms ferrets from pet stores.  I believe it was said that "I
realize that this may mean quite a few little fuzzies at the pet stores
may not get homes as quickly and that is very unfortunate, but I believe
it is necessary." What this means is this: "I realize that this may mean
quite a few little fuzzies will get sold too people who know NOTHING about
ferrets, and of those only a small few will have found a forever home.
The rest will end up either dead or in the shelters, and THEN you can
adopt them.  Sad, but true."
 
Point #3) While perhaps the idea of farm breeding, and the problems
inherint in that are not ideal, I have never been shown proof that
Marshall Farms is really all that bad a place.  YES, I have heard the
stories of babies being shipped too young.  YES, I have heard the
possible medical issues of early spays and what have you.  YES, I know
that MF sells to labs.  YES, I understand that people assume MF ferrets
have higher disease rates.  What all this translates too is this:
 
Of the many many ferrets they breed, occasionally a very small number of
them are shipped too early.  This is an infrequent mistake.
 
There have been suggestions that medical issues arise from early
operations, especially spays.  This has never been proven, even if it
DOES make sense.
 
Selling too labs is arguably as responsible a thing to do as it is
irresponsible.  Without ferrets on which to perform medical experiements,
we would not have HALF the medical knowledge of ferrets that we have.
Each life sacrificed to this research save hundreds or more of our OWN
ferrets' lives.  Not to mention the benifits to human medicine that have
come from ferret research.  (Intubation of infants is just one example.
Ask a mother who's child's life was saved by such a procedure if she
wouldn't rather those ferrets lives had been spared.)
 
Marshall Farms ferrets are by far the most prevalent ferrets out there.
I would guess that most people on this list own mostly Marshall Farms
ferrets, whether they purchased them from the pet store or rescued/adopted
them.  Does this mean that most of the ferrets we hear about getting sick
are Marshall Farms ferrets?  YES, and that makes complete sense, without
reading into it that MF ferrets are more prone to disease.  I have never
been shown any proof, (even considering that both of my boys who died from
ferrety diseases were Marshall Farms,) that Marshall Farms ferrets are
more likely to get these diseases.  Danielle says she was told you have to
go by percentages, and that is 100% true.  And those percentages must be
based on a LARGE test group, following strict scientific method, and doing
the study without bias towards a certain outcome.  Only until such a study
is conducted, and it shows conclusively, upon my OWN observation of the
research data, unfiltered into "layman's terms", that Marshall Farms
ferrets are more likely to get sick, only then will I believe it.  Until
then, it is propoganda and statistics being misused.
 
Melissa Barnes
 
Mira, Tasha, Robin, Samuri, O'Dell, and Nietzsche, all Marshall Farms,
four from the pet store, and NONE of whom are currently ill from
ANYTHING, even considering they range in age from 4 years to 7 months.
 
Missing Cael and Booboo, both of whom were Marshall Farms, one from the
pet store, one from a shelter, and both of whom died from ferrety
illnesses.
[Posted in FML issue 3624]