Holly, i realize you were trying to bring another perspective into this
discussion, but i have to disagree!
 
You can't compare deaf humans having children with the practice of
breeding deaf animals, in the big scheme of things humans being born deaf
is still a huge minority, when it comes to ferrets humans have created
this defect by breeding for colors that are not natural, albinos can be
born in the wild, but usually defects cause them to die before they can
reproduce, our ferrets are being kept safe and therefore we can manipulate
and breed an animal that can pass on these genes.  would it be safe to say
that almost 50% of the ferret population is deaf?  maybee that's to high
of a number, but how long untill we get there?
 
I believe that we as humans have a responsability to breed for good traits
and qualities rather than color.
 
The sad thing is that most people looking at ferrets in a petstore go for
the cute blazes and unusuall colors, but most people are uneducated when
they buy their first ferret, alot of them are bought for their children,
and in too many cases people don't bother to educate themselves down the
road about their pet.
 
So these cute fuzzies are unnecessarily being punished because their
humans don't realize that they are deaf.  (alot of ferrets are being
abused, and deafness is not the cause)
 
I believe the fuzzies themselves don't know they are handicaped, and are
as happy and wonderful as a hearing fuzzie, but they do have problems, and
we are partly to blame, don't we want the best for our ferrets?  I was
talking to a guy that works at my local Petco, about deafness in ferrets,
he had no idea about it and was in fact denying any such problems, he
thought of me as a potential customer and his goal was to sell a ferret.
 
I'm really not flaming anybody, this is just the way it is, people are
always going to breed for unusuall colors as long as there is a demand for
them, education is still what there is lack of, and the only way we can
improve the quality of any ferrets life.
 
Breeders have a responsability to inform, too bad big farms like Marshall
can't be bothered with minor details like that!
 
I would still buy from a private reputable breeder if given the choice,
but i would rather buy from one i feel is breeding for quality and health
rather than color.
 
I haven't been following the thread on the fml, i appologize if i am just
repeating what has already been said, and please know that i am not
flaming anyone, just expressing my opinion.
 
Sincerely
Josephine
[Posted in FML issue 3114]