>... When you ask the stores the birthday of such kits most of the stores
>do not have any ideal when the Kit was born.  They can only tell you when
>it was shipped to them.
 
This is utterly apalling!  I'm all for nailing these idiots to the wall.
In addition, though, as ferrets become increasingly popular pets, every
effort needs to be made to education the people who are buying these kits
so consumers will stay away from obviously very young kits.  If pet stores
buy kits who die on them before they can be sold, something might finally
be done.  Money talks.  *sigh*
 
On that note, I also wanted to point out that here in Lincoln (Nebraska),
there is a chain of stores called Pet Ark, and I've always been very happy
with the way they treat their kits.  In my experience they tend to buy from
smaller breeders, and they've always known the *exact* date of birth for
all their fuzzies.  In fact, when we got our wild pair (Xena and
Gabrielle), they actually had a *sign* up stating the litter's birthdate!
 
On another positive note, the local paper here recently printed a *very*
positive and surprisingly informed article about ferrets, including some
very cute pictures. <g>  They even printed Chris and Shelly Knudsen's
shelter's contact info at the end!
 
-Tasha and the gang of far too many... <g>
[Posted in FML issue 2584]