Sorry to come in on this conversation so late.

I saw yester-years cinnamon ferrets (dark auburn or red ferrets)
through out the 80's. Most originated from the Northeast and their
large farms. For a while, Path Valley had a great deal of them. Our
good friends who owned a few pet stores and sold ferrets thought they
were gorgeous and loved getting them in. However, a major problem
became quite apparent. A good deal of them were ill tempered. I can
best describe them as being aggressive AND seemed to also be like a
neurological biter .... it was a double whammy. Food aggression was a
major issue. Biting could be purposeful when they got into a "mode".
However, when they were being sweet, as soon as you overstimed them
with play it was like something would snap. They'd bite whatever was
near them and hang on. It was very peculiar. We "went through" many of
them because the pet store owners called us whenever they got a baby in
that had any issues to work on or if a ferret had sat at the store for
more than a couple weeks so they had a nice home to visit during days
that they were closed. There were two babies in particular .. that
never did get better. I returned with them many weeks later and told
my friend that I saw no hint of improvement (or I would have kept on
trying). I have no idea what he ever did with them at that point. He
was a great animal lover, and I trusted him so that I never worried
about it to tell you the truth. During the late eighties early nineties
we didn't see very many. Then by mid nineties none.

Since I'm "old school", it still irks me to this day that ferret
people and/or breeders renamed yesterdays Butterscothes to Cinnamon's.
We called what you'd consider today's cinnamon, butterscotches. They
were around in the old days too, but little less orangey most of the
time. The old generation butterscotches were bright gold with tan or
chocolaty points. The undercoat was a gorgeous cream color. Just like a
Worthington's. I cannot tell you how gorgeous they were. They were like
the most golden, creamy rich cinnamon today that you can think of. See
for me, I feel like someone just randomly said one day, "I dont like
the name butterscotch for these guys anymore... hmm .. there are no
more cinnamon's around .... hey lets just call these cinnamon's from
now on". It's like what?? Today's cinnamon are not cinnamon colored at
all. Cinnamon is a dark reddish brown. Like ... yester-years cinnamon
ferrets.! Lol.

Anyway, I feel like it was far too coincidental that the dark auburn
(Cinnamon) ferrets just up and dissappeared for the most part. I have
to wonder if my area was not the only one seeing the behavioral issues
and if pet stores had to complain because they could not sell them. I
don't know.

Wolfy

[Posted in FML 6675]