Dear Erin Reed, (and others who have an interest whether breeders or not)
 
Note: This msg was posted to WSFA WSFR, but I have not been able to confirm
that it has been received.)
 
This is Edward Lipinski of Ferrets NorthWest on Seattle's Mercer Island.
I've had the good fortune of breeding healthy ferrets since 1981.  There
are a couple of people in the Washington State Ferret Association who
currently have four of the ferrets that were bred, born and LUMPS-raised
here.
 
I'd be so appreciative if you could go into specific detail concerning the
difficult time you had with your beloved jill in your efforts to get her
pregnant.  Are you familiar with the two consecutive stages of estrus and
know when to actually introduce the female to the male and not make the
mistake of being so worried about aplastic anemia that you allow coupling
way ahead of the time that seems to be optimum.
 
Also, do you know how to ensure to the maximum degree how to asses the
" fertility" of the male that you will use for coupling?
 
Please describe in detail for me and for the other breeders who monitor
this mailing list, just what you did.  No one here will criticise you in
any manner, shape or degree.  I'll bust heads if need be if anybody does
that to you.  I'm little, but really mean (and I smell bad too.)
 
If you are going into really quality ferret breeding and are not interested
in numbers of kits, you may want to do what we've done here (secretly, so
far), and that is to have your males perform in a manner that results in
very small litters.  If you haven't already noticed, usually the smaller
the litter, the larger the individual birth weight of the kits, so the
objective is to mate the female in a way that effectivelly reduces the
number of healthy spermatazoa the ferret sire ejaculates.  Obviously, the
fewer the spermatazoa per centilitter of ejaculate, the fewer ova that will
be fertilized and the smaller the litter produced.  Please bear in mind
that I'm certainly not referring to "coitis interruptus."
 
This method, which is proprietary and secret, has enabled us to produce
litters of 4 and 2 and no baby ferrets from a given female whom we knew was
fertile as was the male viripotent (viripotent is a word defined to mean
virile and potent; hence: viripotent.  This word is used to describe a
male animal known to be able to engender pregnancies, just the opposiste
of the vasectomized male.  The neutered male issues no ejaculate nor spzoa
intervaginally.) The smaller litters assure that momma will have an easier
time of suckling and caring for her kits.  In addition I think it's easier
on her reproductive system per litter and may permit you to breed her
successfully yearly rather than striving for large litters and breeding
only for pregnancy every two years.
 
I applaud your emphasis on documenting the geneology of the breeders, but
as I've found out the geneology trees in most cases aren't worth the paper
they are written on.  About the only sensible way to ferret out good
breeders is start with the biggest and healthiest "mongrels" you can find.
I am extremely warry of any breeder of ferrets who claims that she has
pure-bred, pedigreed ferrets; especially if she uses the term, "purebred."
If you're favored by the gods of chance and get good healthy kits over 2
to 3 years of breeding (F1 being the progenitors or the starting family,
F2 being the first generation produced by the F1 generation, F3 being the
second generation, and so on.) you'll be doing good.
 
 [Posting in 2 parts -- combined into one. BIG]
 
As you may read thus far, I'm no believer in so called, "purebreds." As a
matter of fact, in my experience, a mongrel ferret who is healthy, spunky
and of good, solid muscle mass is the way to go.
 
And, if you do breed for sales of your kits, you will someday be asked to
possibly mate one of your sold females to one of your males, or to another
male that you sold and is in ownership other than yours.  Here's where you
can get into trouble by accidently inbreeding or crossbreeding of F classes
that are possibly too close in their filial relationships.
 
To avoid this you may want to adopt our method or a similar method of
inhibiting inbreeding by using a nomenclature program such as this.
Consider the F1 sire whose name is Bandit.  Consider the F1 dam whose name
is Frisky.  The F2 product of their filiation (mating), every and each
kit born of this union would bear the name, "BanFri."
 
To differentiate the individual kits of the Banfri litter you would assign
an arbitrary number to each ferret kit as it is sold.  The number would
suffix the litter name; hence the first ferret kit to be sold would be
named Banfri-1, the second, Banfri-2, and so on.  You must tie the name of
the ferret to the buyer in a legal document that only allows the sale of
said ferret upon payment of a $500 title transfer fee to you - this to
inhibit the sale of your ferrets to 3rd parties of whom you have no
knowledge.
 
Here at Ferrets NorthWest FNW, the suffixed numbers of the litter name are
in a foreign language.  In our case the chosen language is Japanese for two
reasons: 1.) Phoenetics and 2.) Business.  Everybody can pronounce Japanese
numbers.  Not so with other languages.  Here on the Pacific coast there are
many niesei (2nd generation Japanese and their offspring.  Because I use
Japanese language, many Japanese people are my best clients, and I have two
ferrets now residing in Japan.  Were I located in Milwaukie, I'd probably
use the German language, and if in Washington, DC, use eubonics, being
careful not to use the word "niggardly."
 
The ferret's name would tell you instantly who the sire and the dam are.
The sequential numbers suffixed to their litter name would tell you the
sequence of sale and the preferences of your buyers.  For example, what is
the primary characteristic of all those kits of different litters that have
the earlier numbers; i.e. 1, 2, 3, and so on.  And why are the later
numbers not sold as quickly or as readily?  Creating such an historical
perspective will permit you to breed to the major desires of your clients.
 
Quality control of your breeding program is absolute in that just by
knowing the litter name of your ferrets, you will not ever mate two Banfri
ferrets, nor mate a F2 Banfri back to its Sire or Dam of the F1 generation.
I hope this is not too confusing to you.  Sometimes this naming of litters
after their parents can get somewhat amusing; for example, consider the
male ferret whose name was "Ferret" and his mating female was named
"Queenie." The litter name was "Ferqu."
 
I,as well, I'm sure, as other responsible, experienced and intelligent
breeders will look forward to your responses.
 
Glueck auf! [G.] Good luck.
 
Edward Lipinski
[Posted in FML issue 2572]