Hi everyone, It breaks my heart when I read of yet another ferret shelter
either closing due to overwhelming vet bills or way too many ferrets in
their shelter and not enough adoptions...etc... Without all of you, I
cant even imagine what would happen to all these sweet babies.
 
We all know that Marshalls is the biggest "puppy mill" of ferrets.
They are the ones that you always find in the pet stores.  (I know not
always - but the majority of the time).  Yet they claim to care so much
about their ferrets.  But, they dont seem to care that (I'm guessing?)
thousands of them end up dumped in shelters across the US.  I have a
few questions...
 
-Have any of you shelters or rescues even received one penny of help from
them???  (I know that Petco, for example, will give grants if you meet
certain requirements, like holding info/adoption days at their store a
certain # of times.  I know that Ferretstore.com and Ferretdepot.com
gives donations and certificates to shelters...)  Those are just a few
I can think of off the top of my head... But what I'm getting at is,
those businesses are helping... what about Marshalls?????
 
-Does any place have an appx # of Marshall Farms ferrets that are turned
into shelters each year?  Does any group keep a tally of these #'s?
 
-Do they include any informational packets with their ferrets who are
bought from petstores that include: how much care a ferret requires, they
are not "cage" pets, their proper nutrition requirements, what diseases
they are likely to get and how much to treat these diseases are going to
cost on average...etc... I know the disease thing may be pushing it, but
didnt I read somewhere (correct me if I'm wrong?) that it was studied
somewhere that the majority of ferrets will come down with: adrenal
disease or insulinoma or both??
 
-Would it do any good to bombard Marshalls with letters from us, stating
these facts (above) to them... and maybe we can at least get them to
start making donations to these shelters?
 
In a perfect world, they would slow down on their "ferret output".
But maybe we could at least get them to give some donations to these
overworked, overstressed, blessed ferret shelters and rescues??
 
I wish I could do more to help out these rescues when they post about
their lack of adoptions and/or vet bills.  It pains me not to be able
to help.  But after adopting a number of Marshall ferrets (past and
present)... my own vet bills are still being paid off.
 
I mean I remember when we banned together to get ferretstore and
ferretdepot to change and remove their bad/unhealthy ferret treats.
And though not all of them are gone, they've made big changes for the
betterment of ferrets.  Maybe we can do this with Marshall Farms and
get them to help out - since they are the biggest contributors to our
wonderful ferret shelters/rescues being so overworked and busting at
the seams.  Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never heard of
any shelters receiving any kind of help from Marshalls.  Isnt it time
we banned together again, and get Marshalls to finally step up to the
plate and start doing their fair share of helping??
 
What do y'all think?
 
Andrea
[Posted in FML issue 5303]