>... very tired of the holier than thou attitudes presented by too
>many here.

Or could it be that others were tired of that attitude in you?

>We know Doug McKay personally. We have been to his ranch. It is not
>a mill.

And you have always had the same old farmer mentality and defended him.
Just like you advised others who asked, that DB was no better or worse
than any others. Those pictures show a "farm" that is indeed a mill. No
better than the puppy mills in Lancaster county. Mass production of
animals in the cheapest conditions that will barely squeak past the law
in order to make a profit. In case you haven't caught on it is not
acceptable to keep animals like this. One has to wonder when you defend
these kinds of breeders and keeping ferrets like that how you kept your
own.

>That is a loaded description coming from people more interested
>in puffing themselves up than actually accomplishing anything good.

That is just a ridiculous statement. How could you possibly puff
yourself up from wanting to take those poor ferrets out of those
conditions?? I know of others who were at his ranch in the late
nineties and said you had to don hip boots just to wade through the
muck and mud to get to the animals and that ferrets and mink were often
loose and interacting. I saw him in the early nineties using those
gloves to pull his large hobs out of those small cages at a ferret
show. Cages which I might add had no bottoms just the wire covered in
straw. The hobs were brilliant orange from a bad diet and unsanitary
conditions. He told my friend that you could not handle these without
gloves because they were breeding males and they were vicious. I have
never had a breeding male that you couldn't handle. They are the
sweeties of the ferret world. So it seems like nothing much has
changed in years.

>Too many of the people we know of that pass them selves off as
>shelters and breeders are actually worse than the people barely eking
>out a living as farmers. When we see actual physical abuse - striking
>ferrets hard for "attitude adjustment" - from the same people posing
>as ferret angels it apalls us.

Give me a break! I understand farmers are in dire straits, but there is
a choice here. If you have to "eke" out a living then stop breeding so
many animals. It is not right to contact a rescue to help you when you
plan to breed more. If you cannot afford to take care of them, don't
bring more into the world. It makes no sense. Apparently,the man you
are defending is doing the exact thing that you are accusing others of.

An operation of that size needs full time employees not a couple of
family members doing what they can.

It is physical as well as mental abuse to cram several ferrets into
those small cages, never being let out. I don't and wouldn't keep
single ferrets in cages that small. They have no room to move.

>Doug is a kindly old man barely staying alive.
>
He could be the nicest man this side of heaven, but that does not give
him the right to keep his poor animals like that. It is a shame he is
in poor health but that is all the more reason to stop breeding these
animals since he is incapable of taking care of them. You go on and on
about how ill and poor he is, then the solution is to find homes for
what you have and stop producing. To keep doing so will just make him
poorer.

>are stories written by semi-literates based on poor grammar and bad
>spelling.

You should be ashamed of yourself. What gives you the right to class
people, call them semi-literate or to claim to know what their motives
are? I see people every day who buy puppy mill puppies knowing they are
sick with multiple problems just to get them out of the situation they
are in. Because they CARE, they feel sorry for the animal. A concept
you can't seem to master. Doug and his family can stop breeding. The
animals can't stop what comes naturally when they are crammed several
in a cage. Yet people have ulterior motives for wanting to stop this?

As far as the law goes...........they are limited by the codes on the
books which are less than ideal.

>As soon as someone says they put "ferrets first" we immediately
>suspect they are lying. Seen it far too many times.

Now there is a sane statement for you. People care about ferrets so
they are liars...okay......

Oh and while you are nit-picking the spelling and grammar of these hate
filled middle class snobs you might check out your own posts and look
up the words appall, subsidence, winter, affidavits and notoriety just
to name a few. I did not bother with the grammar. Or learn how to use
spell checker that is the thing with the ABC and the check mark.

Pat Stauffer
Weasels
http://pages.prodigy.net/staufferp/

[Posted in FML 5543]