Yes, he has gone to the mat in the past to improve the treatment of
ferrets; glad that you got to see that he still feels that way and that
there will be progress in the right direction when he can get it.  (He
still has to answer to the Board as in any corporation and they won't
always allow things or may stall things.) The important thing is to have
the right direction.
 
Wouldn't it be great for you to cover the other large farms this way and
put all of those posts next to each other?
 
Here's one reason why and a positive change you might get faster that way:
 
How many of the others would like to get back to the 8 week shipping age
that existed before it was driven down by competition and the rest?  *IF*
most of the large farms in the States could be gotten to agree to that
through a third party (as in a third party getting a cease-fire between
two other parties) the changes could happen SOONER!  Obviously, they can't
all agree to unwarranted higher prices to reduce impulse buys because that
would violate national and state price-fixing laws, but they COULD all
agree to safer and older ages for shipping and then it could actually
happen much more rapidly -- and they could even mention it in their
advertising as another good reason to buy their ferrets.
 
(Just a hopeful brain-storm there since you have opened a route that could
followed further elsewhere and maybe have an incredibly marvelous ending
that way.)
 
Like you, I hope that the adoption of retired breeders increases.  Such
numbers are too much for any locale's area shelters to handle (which is
what has prevented it from extending to all available retirees), but if
some folks who know those fields of labor could work out how to transport
and distribute to good shelters...
 
If that can be arranged then it deserves public praise, too, and MF should
be able to include it among mentions of those things they get right.  It's
another things I'd love to have all large farms do, as would everyone, I
expect.
 
Steve and I had a retired breeder from a smaller place among our rescues
years back and she was a darling!  We've had adult rescues as well as kit
ones and have to tell folks that adult rescues are marvelous; they have a
tendency to be grateful to people whom kits at times will still take for
granted.  They are different experiences and both are usually great!
 
THESE positive actions are the things that actually SAVE animals' lives,
as opposed to that theft last week.
 
This is likely to become a larger project than Danielle would be able to
tackle alone, but it would be do-able if there were volunteers who worked
from the same questions list that she used, or a very similar one if
additional questions come up in the future to ask all.  Tips and standards
for the questioning would have to be established among DF and the others.
 
What all too often happens is that good projects get derailed because too
few people become involved and the ones who get involved often already
have full schedules, such as shelter folks or list moderators.  If others
would volunteer a lot more could be accomplished.
[Posted in FML issue 3631]