Hello, hello.
I rarely post, but a discussion with my fiance led to some puzzling
questions about WS and it's history.
 
Does anyone know when the WS traits began appearing in the ferret
population?  Is there any historical reference to the colours or anything?
And does anyone have any idea how prevelent it is in the Canadian ferret
population?
 
I spent last morning doing some research in the old FML archives and the
internet on Waardenburg in ferrets, and became 'a believer', if you will,
in trying to prevent the further spread of this in the ferret population.
I mentioned it to Kyle (said fiance) because his favorite patterns have
always been the silver mits, pandas and blazes.  When I discribed some of
the symptoms, and problems, of WS ferrets, he was literally horified.
 
You see, Kyle (and his former wife) used to breed ferrets from 1986 to
1989.  They had a freind with the first pandas in Eastern Canada, and were
part of a few breeder groups.  Their ferrets, especially Lorielei, a silver
mitt, didn't show traits of WS, from what he describes, but I wonder if
Lorielei might have had it.  She had what he described as a 'hooded' look,
with a dark cap of colour on the top of her head, and two dark markings
under her eyes, LIKE A BLAZE, but without the blaze markings.  Now, I
read that the blaze was caused by skull deformation and the pigmentation
resulting thereof, and Lori had a very narrow, weasely skull, so could she
have had WS?  This seems even more likely because of her horrible time with
miscarages, and fetal deformeties when paired with a panda hob.  Her one
sucessful litter had a ferret which I saw (quite old) myself.  Typical
broad, cute face and panda markings.
 
Now, you have to understand that at the time all the ferret info said that
infant mortality was high and pregnancies hard for ferrets, so they didn't
think what Lori went through was overly odd, so many of her healthy babies,
and that of her sister from the same litter, went back to the panda guy and
to other people's breeding programs.
 
I'm mostly curious if WS could be, I don't know, accumulative.  Her parents
didn't have any signs of it, and her mom has 13 (!) kits that all lived,
but she and her black sable sister seemed to have had some of the traits,
and some their kits all of them.  Kyle is worried when I mentioned some
breeders were looking at Canadian stock as being less WS tainted, as he can
attest of at least one big influx of WS early on.  And he was also curious
to see where it might have come from.  It seemed (to him) to have something
to do with the apperance of mitts in ferrets, but mitted ferrets don't have
WS.  So is it a fluke?  Historical?  What?  I don't know how much of this
post will make sence, or be useful, but I'm really frigging curious about
the syndrome and what brought it out in ferrets.
 
Pardon any mistakes, I'm hardly a geneticist, just a ferret lover.
 
Mel
[Posted in FML issue 3222]