>There is one sure way to stem the tide and that is to close down Marshall
>Farms. Not only do they overproduce, but I will take full responsibility
>for my conviction that they are unbelievably cruel in their production
>and shipping methods and that in the breeding process, produce inherently
>defective animals that have less than a 50-50 chance of living beyond the
>age of 5 years.
 
>AMEN!  AND any other ferret farms/mills that are similar.
 
Well, I do agree that the ferret farms need to be lumped together because
all of them need improvement and ham-stringing one would only allow
another (which may even be worse since MF is by no means the worst farm)
to increase in size so all farms need to be tackled fairly and logically,
but I sure can NOT agree with the health declarations.  Over the 19 years
that we have had ferrets they have come from a range of places and the MFs
have not been any different in health or in lifespan range than the rest.
Actually, we haven't had any very early deaths among our MFs though we
realize that at some point we will just as we have had two who died younger
than six from two other breeders over the years, one from JL and one from a
bird-borne disease.  Then again, we have great vets here and we are used to
ferret health care ourselves so some things that may kill other people's
ferrets due to their vets or the ferret-folk still needing to learn more
about ferret health needs (which all of us -- even old-timers -- must do on
a continual basis) are curable problems for us.  (BTW, the absolute worst
places for treatment of ferrets have been small "backyard breeders", and
the best have been small private breeders.)
[Posted in FML issue 3439]