Chris wrote:
>I mean, someone wrote that they studied about 150 ferrets out of which 98%
>were Marshall Farms, and 1/3 of them had problems.  Someone else responded
>to this saying that meant NOTHING.  Well, how can you say it means nothing!!
 
Some of you shelter folks correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that ferrets
which are brought to shelters have a higher incidence of medical problems
than the overall population.  Isn't that sometimes why they are brought in,
because the owner can't handle the $?
 
IF 98% will be MF ferrets ( or look like them) it could be because 98% of
the general population are MF ferrets (or whatever the % is).  So as far as
the numbers in the example you cited 'meaning nothing', I think that the
proportion of problems that show up in shelters to total ferrets are high,
therefore the numbers are skewed (artificially high) for the example.  I
hope that explanation makes sense.
 
-Ilena Ayala
 
Rabies Resources fof Ferret Lovers can be found at:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ilena/rabies.htm
[Posted in FML issue 1991]