LisetteLu wrote:
>Marshall Farms has lay people off the street perform the surgeries on
>the ferrets in a kitchen like setting without sterilization techniques
>necessary to prevent infection or spread of infection.  This was what
>we learned from one of the veterinarians that worked for Marshall
>Farms that I wrote of last year.
 
Lisette, we have been through this before.  You state, "learned from one
of the veterinarians that worked for Marshall Farms".  Lisette, ***WHO***
IS this unnamed vet?  You make a blanket statement that many of our new
readers may believe (If it sounds good it must be true!) yet you do not
quote your source.  Lisette, as it was last year, it is still true today.
What you have printed is utter nonsense.  Falsehoods generated by PETA
and PETA type groups to try and turn public sentiment against a large
animal breeder.
 
In most people, common sense tells us that Marshall Farms is a business,
a business selling healthy animals to labs and to the pet industry.  If
Marshall Farms practiced, as you state, non sterile surgeries that could
and would lead to a high mortality and infection rate, they would quickly
be out of business as no one would purchase a sickly animal.
 
Gentle readers, may I remind everyone reading this that without the 'lab'
animals raised by companies like Marshall Farms, many of us would not be
here today to debate this issue.  And something that hits very close to
home to most of us here on the FML, our ferrets would not be as healthy or
free from persecution if it weren't for lab studies and tests.  (Example,
a recognized and accepted rabies vaccination that now allows us to openly,
without fear of seizure and euthanation in case of a bite, take our ferrets
into public.
 
We may not like the idea that our wonderful companions are in this world
for any other purpose than to entertain us, but, they are.  And that is
the way it is!
 
Other examples of unpopular but true things we may not like...horses, dogs,
and cats are loved here in the Western hemisphere as pets but in Europe,
horse meat is considered a good, lean, meat, preferred over bovine meat.
Dogs and cats are a delicacy in the Far East, and are raised specifically
as food in many parts of Southeast Asia.  (THAT even got to me in Viet
Nam!)
 
Lisette, you are entitled to your opinions, but please, if you can't
substantiate your sources and show they are legitimate, keep your opinions
to yourself.  Ferrets in the U.S.  have a hard enough time getting accepted
without the major producers being smeared by zealots in a feeble attempt to
stop their breeding programs.
 
For Our Ferrets
 
MC, The Rude One
(With Snorkle, Tuzigoot, and Bancho.  In spirit, Bubba, Billy-Bob, and
Garret)
[Posted in FML issue 3445]