>From:    Bob Church <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Bob C Q&A: "Nut"rition
>I haven't figured out the rubber, although I work on the hypothesis
>that they either want sulfur or are just sh*ts, and lean towards the later.
 
If they chewed as much as humans you could reason its the same as why humans
chew plastic (in the form of chewing gum).  Maybe they want to but can't get
it right because their teeth are wrong.... <grin>
 
>From:    Mark Zmyewski <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Sable is the original color/pattern???
>I'm confused, because I thought the original color of the ferret was
>white/albino and it was the mixing of ferrets with European polecats that
>caused the sable ferrets.
 
The same people pushing this theory are the same people pushing the Egyptian
theory.  There is absolutely no evidence that white is the original color.
 
White animals in the wild are particularly easy to spot for predators - well
excpet in the Arctic but ferrets are polar bears or Arctic foxes.
 
The confusion comes from folks in England and elsewhere that call any brown
ferret a polecat and any white one a ferret.  Thats wrong.  Ferrets are
ferrets and according to our resident expert - Mo'Bob, who will correct me
I'm sure if I'm wrong - they are so much like the European Polecat that it
is most likely they are domesticated from them.  Just as Dogs are pretty
much domesticated wolves - but since dogs were more modified by going for
breeds that that less resemble wild wolves.
 
>From:    Sukie Crandall <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: shades of gray in gentics, shades of gray in ferrets, liver illness
 
>When someone has what looks like the matings of full albinos but winds up
>with colored kits it might be that one or both of the parents happened to
>have suppressing genes at other loci which caused them to appear albino.
 
Absolutely - though you are the expert over us here.  What do you know about
genes like the horse's palomino and dogs merle?  Is my hypothesis about
albino being like this?  That is that it fades chocolate browns to
champagnes (cinnamons) but doesn't affect sable shades.  I'm just trying to
figure out why we have diluted chocolates but not diluted sables.
 
>What do the formal color naming groups call a ferret which has the typical
>patterning but instead of the standard colors it's almost all or all in
>shades of gray?
 
AFA currently uses roaning to describe the whitening of black.  FURO used
the same term and something else to describe the pattern but used seperate
names for the shades.  Neutral black (as in silvers) seems to be different
than the (slightly brownish) black sables.  I think this is one of the
colors that was very common but through indiscriminant breeding with pandas
and blazes seems to be hard to find in a good clean state anymore.  "Silver
mitts" used to be good clean patterns with the black/grey color and white
patterns on the feet.  Now you usually find it mixed in with the white socks
and knee caps of the Waardensburg patterns.
 
Breeders really ought to learn more about genetics instead of denigrating
those who have.  Genetics is how we can achive our stated goal of "improving
the ferret".  If you don't know genetics (well really just inheritance) you
can't know you are improving your lines.  Show ribbons don't prove anything.
Mass production through breeding every jill you can grab doesn't either.
 
We're more impressed with those that talk about the jills they don't breed.
Those that talk about trying to track traits through generations.  Culling
is how we improve ferrets.  Though culling by adopting out not euthanizing.
 
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
http://www.zenferret.com/
mailto:[log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 1910]