The earlier comment about MF and not breeding fancies anymore caught my
attention.
 
I have 3 MF ferrets.  My oldest is a regular sable and when we got him
3 years ago in Washington State, most of the other ferrets were regular
sables as well (I think there might have been one albino and one brown in
with him)
 
When we got our other 2 two years ago here in Upstate New York, there
were almost no regular sables in the group.  Our younger male is a silver
mitt, and our female is a mutt (blaze, bibbed, half-mitted, silver
reared, sabled front).  Amazingly enough (even surprised our vet/surgeon)
she is not deaf at all - she was actually the easiest to train to come to
a squeaky or call.  Though she is not without problems, most likely from
breeding - she has an very small jaw and lips, allowing her to only open
jaw about half of what a normal ferret can manage (she definately gets
enough to eat though, she is overweight at the moment although we are
working on that with more exercise) While they both caught our attention
with their coloring, we were also looking for attitudes and activity
levels.
 
Visiting the pet store today, we saw a few regular sables, some sables
with white markings (white chins mainly), chocolates, champaigns, one
albino, a few silvers.  Last year I definately saw more "fancier" ferrets
at the pet store than I am this year.  So it is hard to say what the
truth is.  I have to agree though that it seems somewhat unlikely that
MF would stop breeding fancy ferrets when the competition is not.
 
Stephanie
3 fuzzies and a ferret herding puppy
[Posted in FML issue 4067]