The largest breeders minimize inbreeding by keeping track of groups and
which groups can be mated to which others is controlled and cycled.
Some are said to have also imported some European sperm.
For adrenal disease early neutering is not the full picture. Whole
ferrets also get adrenal disease, even sometimes early adrenal disease,
and there needs to be a study to compare rates though the rates certainly
seem to be lower for whole ferrets. It also appears like giving
melatonin, or giving low levels of Lupron in the Spring, or providing
complete darkness might reduce the onset levels and increase the age of
on-set for adrenal disease. There is a lot in the archives on this
topic. the "JM from FHL" posts on the topic are especially good, or
instead go to the FHL archives and search using AFERRETVET in the
"from" box.
Years ago adrenal disease was much more rarely diagnosed, even with early
alters. Why? No one knows. We aren't the only ones from then who have
mentioned this by a long shot. I'm sure that part of it was just that it
was spotted less but it is much more complicated than that.
Early onsets began to happen in large numbers separately and years after
adrenal growths began to be reported more. I am personally inclined to
wonder how much the concurrent great increase in some types of fancy
genetics influenced this change.
Sherman, to whom I refer in a different post, is our second ferret with
an adrenal growth before the age of 5. He is 3 and 1/2. That is in
almost 22 years with ferrets. Not bad, huh? What do we have? Late
alters? Nope. Special breeding? Nope. Tons of raw or special food?
Nope, just high quality prepared foods. Only about 1/3 of our ferrets
wind up with adrenal growths or insulinoma, or both, AND most of those
are after the age of 5 years and most have only one adrenal involved when
the problem is adrenal growths. Also not at all bad data grouping. Most
here live into late their 7th year to mid 8th which is not spectacular
at all but is still a very reasonable mean age bracket for age of death
(though we have lost some earlier to JL, the current mystery disease, a
bird-borne disease (over 20 years ago), carcinoma, and mostly 2 lymphoma
clumps we had), and we alternatively have lost some at older ages. The
life spans we see are very typical for ferrets in the U.S. over the last
decade or so, and our's have been from a wide range of breeding sources,
esp. farms -- with most through the years being adopted as kits due to
their existing serious problems. Personally, I really suspect that our
providing a lot of good exercise, preventing obesity when possible, and
providing at least 14 hours a day of complete darkness (which actually is
a very old British ferreting procedure) make a huge difference (because
in complete darkness the body produces a lot of melatonin).
In the wild polecats rarely live to any appreciable ages, and most of
the disease ferrets get are actually old age illnesses. It's like with
us humans: after 35 for us it is all maintenance (with the amount of
maintenance increasing over the years). Ask anyone with dental caps,
glasses, anyone a diet, anyone with a home gym, anyone with a mammogram
or PSA scheduled, etc.
It needs to be remembered that not all of the large farms are against
returning to later sales ages. Long ago, back before there were many of
the current farms, the usual shipping or sales age was 8 weeks. Then
there began to be some farms which reduced the ages they sent to 5 or 6
weeks of age, and those forced the older farms to copy them because the
pet stores insisted that they would only buy young kits. Very often the
WRONG farms wind up getting the blame because people know their names
already. The reality too often is that the older farms have been placed
into a spot between a rock and a hard place.
It would probably surprise many here to know that I've heard several
times from a top executive in what might be the most often disparaged
farm that actually they would welcome a return to an 8 week mandated
minimum sales and transport age. They simply think it is healthier and
dislike being forced by the market into the spot of having to sell
younger ones to stores.
You'll have noticed that there is a LOT less opposition to legislative
efforts to increase the age of ferrets at sales and transport than folks
worried there would be, and that this pattern has been repeated in state
after state. That is quite simply because there are those in the ferret
farm industry who welcome an 8 week minimum age as a requirement instead
of disliking the idea. They can afford that and know they can because
they used to do it, they know it is healthier and therefore less likely
to result in unhappy customers, and they hate being forced by pet sales
industry demands to send younger animals -- so regulated ages of no
younger than 8 weeks are actually good for them, too. Otherwise, because
of the demands of pet stores they are stuck in the spot of not being able
to sell their animals if they insist on later shipping ages, so improved
laws and regulations help them help ferrets and consumers.
If you "want" to hear something horrifying, some of the newer and smaller
farms are again upping the stakes by having forced weaning to take ages
lower. This has a number of people in the larger and older farms
appalled because it simply is NOT healthy and NOT fair to the ferret or
to the consumer in terms of behavioral adjustments as well as health
concerns.
Obviously, there is a GREAT need for rules which prevent selling and
shipping ferrets at young ages: laws such as those which have passed or
are being considered in: NH, Maine, Michigan, and Maryland, and this need
is only being made larger by the push by some smaller farms to use forced
weaning to further lower ages.
[Posted in FML issue 4455]
|
