I'd like to add my meager 2 cents worth on the issue of whether or not
to buy ferrets coming from Marshall Farms. First, the disclaimer: I'm
not a vet and I'm not a breeder (although I tried it for a while and
decided it was too much work).
 
re: Marshall Farm ferrets are inferior because they are the product of
mass-breeding.
 
My experience is exactly opposite to this. Marshall Farms is breeding to
sell ferrets. They breed for healthy, high-yield animals. I've heard
they don't pay much attention to the coat colors, breeding instead for
health and lots of kits. Leaving whether or not using ferrets in labs is
morally correct aside, this kind of breeding program will be more likely
to breed lots of the most common coat colors and very healthy ferrets.
 
In my small experience, I've seen more problems with small breeders
trying to achieve interesting coat colors and breeding in recessive
problems. I'm sure there are very conscientious people out there,
carefully breeding for health and intelligence, as well as interesting
coat color, but the only money to be made for a small breeder would be
in coat color. And I've met enough people who are definitely in it for
the money to wonder about the long-range effects.
 
Small breeder-breeding seems to be a fairly new thing -- at least in any
high numbers. When I bought my ferrets, the only place you could get a
ferret in my area was through the pet store. There was a local breeder
in the neighborhood, which my kit supposedly came from, but they "sold"
their kits to Marshall Farms, who then neutered them and they "bought"
them back. At the time I got my first ferret, there were no vets around
who would neuter a ferret for less than $150-200, and were being sold in
pet stores for $129, and I got mine on sale for $89.
 
I was told by the breeder that they had a deal with the local pet store
that they wouldn't sell ferrets themselves, otherwise the pet store
wouldn't take their ferrets.
 
And I don't know how other breeders work, but these breeding ferrets
were not pets. The breeder explained that due to them being in season,
that I shouldn't try to pet them, and that some of her best breeding
ferrets were great mothers, but would take a chunk out of you. And the
way they were kept was certainly not like pet ferrets, but with lots of
ferrets, I'm not sure there was a more efficient way. She kept them in a
garage with a thermostat to run the heater/air conditioner. The cages
were stacked 3 or 4 high (it's been a few years and my memory isn't that
great) with no pans on the bottoms. Under each layer of ferret cages was
a plastic sheet angled down to a trough. Several times a day, she'd use
a garden hose and squirt the plastic off and rinse it down the sewer. It
stunk *really bad* in there, but the ferrets were healthy, well-fed and
all had lots of water. She had around 40 ferrets, all in separate cages.
 
My friend bought a ferret from another pet store (in the same chain)
around the same time I bought mine. Both supposedly came from the same
breeder, but mine had a tattoo on her ear and my friend's didn't. My
friend's ferret bit, but mine didn't.
 
I believe my ferret really came from Marshall Farms and hers came from
the private breeder. My ferret caught the flu shortly after I bought
her, and not knowing anything about ferrets, she got VERY sick before I
realized she wasn't acting normal. Her temp was over 110 when I rushed
her to the after-hours vet, and she had some brain damage, so I can't
really compare the health of both ferrets equally.
 
My friend's ferret is more muscular, doesn't bite anymore but has a
"thing" for plastic and freaks women occasionally by insisting that fake
fingernails are fair game. Her ferret has learned how to get out of four
different kind of latches on the cage -- my ferret doesn't try. My
ferret has no sense of balance and will fall off tables and shoulders.
Her ferret hangs on well, and doesn't hit the ground unless she meant
it. My ferret will go back to the cage when she's tired or has to poop.
Her ferret prefers the couch and prefers corners to the litter box (even
inside the cage). My ferret gets motion-sickness when I put her on the
dashboard of a moving car or carry her in a handbag. My ferret never,
ever has bitten and has always had such a sweet temperment that even
small children can hold her without worrying about her biting. If she's
hurt, she just cries. She doesn't know how to hunt, but the other ferret
made short work of a wild bird stuck behind my refrigerator.
Many of the differences, though, could be attributed to the high fever.
 
Of the ferrets I've met socially at science fiction conventions and
elsewhere, the ones with the tattoo on the ear (presumably from Marshal
Farms) have all been totally sweet, non-biting pets. The others were
about 50/50. I suspect some of the non-tattooed ferrets that bit were
really fitch ferrets because their noses were more pointy than is the
'desired' ferret nose. And more pointy than Marshall Farms ferrets.
 
Perhaps private breeding is working towards the high standard of private
breeders of dogs and cats, but right now I don't feel it's quite gotten
there. "backyard" breeders seem to me to be more common (and harder to
discern) than backyard breeders (and puppy mills) of dogs, for example.
At least in my area (PA).
 
I would never discourage anyone from buying from a private breeder, and
it really is helpful to be able to talk to a breeder to get the 'inside
scoop' (heh, heh) on ferrets and their behavior, but I really don't
think that totally dismissing Marshall Farms is warranted.
 
And in the end, it seems to matter more to the ferret (in health and
behavior) where they spend the rest of their life than where they began
it.
 
At any rate, let's not start a war on whether a "convenience" kit is
better or worse. At least not until all the states accept ferrets for
the nice pets that they are.
 
--Barb--
 
PS I *like* my ferrets small ... they don't eat as much or poop as much ...
[Posted in FML issue 0369]