>bill k wrote:
>>Marshall Farms doesn't usually place ferrets directly into pet stores but
>>goes through brokers.  Along the way the pet stores end up with no clue
>>as to where the ferrets came from.
 
>alphachi wrote:
>>PET SUPERMARKETS are a large southern chain that purchases many, many MF
>>ferrets every few weeks.  They KNOW where they are getting them from.
 
Melissa replied:
>Whatever.  Both of you are right in my experience.  Some stores know that
>their ferrets are from MF.  Some stores don't.
 
I don't know a lot about MF ferrets, but I know how some Canadian stores
work, and I assume it would be similar.
 
We have a major chain of pet stores in BC called Pet Habitat, which is a
franchise.  We have two major ferret breeders in Canada; CDC and Hagen.
Hagen doesn't breed its own ferrets, it contracts the breeding out to a man
named Dave Holden in Manitoba.
 
One Pet Habitat location is the "clearing house" for all ferrets sold
through their chain of stores.  The Richmond location gets in about 30
ferrets, keeps the ones it wants, then sends the rest to other locations.
The paperwork is often faxed over later, if at all.  Very often, stores will
have two sets of paperwork, one saying CDC, the other saying Hagen, and
they'll grab which ever is closest, run a copy off the fax machine, and
claim these are the ferret's papers.  There is rarely a guarantee that the
paperwork even corresponds to the batch of ferrets that has come in ... I've
seen paperwork for 8 week old ferrets that would indicate they are closer to
5 months old.
 
If you ask the store clerk where the ferrets come from, they'll inevitably
say "our Richmond Store" as if that store breeds them in the back or
something.  Or they'll look at the paperwork and say "Hagen" or "CDC,"
according to whatever the paper says.  They don't actually know.
Complicated even further, both Hagen and CDC sometimes tattoo their kits,
sometimes don't.  If you call Hagen with a complaint about a ferret, they'll
deal with it as the contractor, but you've got to be able to prove the
ferret is Hagen.  Sometimes you can't, because your paperwork says CDC even
though there's a big green H in the ferret's ear.  When we rescued little
crooked jaw Perry, the store was in the process of trying to return her to
the breeder, but alas ... they didn't know which breeder she came from
because Richmond never sent her paperwork and the manager was on holidays.
 
I would imagine that MF works in a similar way, especially with pet store
chains.  Even if MF (or Hagen, or CDC) were to attempt to track batches of
ferrets, I'd argue that the pet stores need to be cleaned up first because
there's no use in MF trying to implement anything if the pet stores can't
get thier acts together.
 
Happy Ferreting!
 
Sheena - [log in to unmask]  | "To Err is Ferret ... To Forgive|
VP - Greater Vancouver      | "... Well, That's Our Job"      |
     Ferret Association      (Wherret Web Pages Coming Soon!)
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