We have met a large male ferret (a breeder in Montana) about 20 years
ago who weighed about 6 (six) pounds and he was not obese, just big
and muscular. It was a dirt floor house made a cinder block and it was
winter so they all had incredible coats but that can not have been
comfortable for anyone with any number of legs. The people were making
do with what they had and keeping everyone fed. The ferrets were all in
one or two very large communal cages and very, very dirty and greasy
but during Winter in Montana in a house with little heat a bath would
be a bad idea. BTW, he was young, and very placid and friendly. They
were trying to breed ferrets for money, had been at it only a few
years, and I don't know where they got their ferrets from.

However, long, long ago there were some private breeders working on a
large size breed they called demi giga (if my memory serves). I have
not heard of that in ages so I guess there may have been either some
sort of major health problem, or a failure to breed true, or a lack of
interest. Any of the three is possible and quite a few of the fancy
ferret types purposely bred through the years have turned out to have
serious health problems. Anyway, those were described to me once in an
email as being even larger than that male Steve and I met, but we never
met one.

Oh, GADS, now I see who was working on them (Thank goodness for
archives!):

<http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/SCRIPTS/WA-FERRET.EXE?A2=ind0102&L=FERRET-SEARCH&P=R15819>

I think most people here know about the later rescue effort from that
Ohio farm.

Nothing in the archives tells their actual sizes, though.

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html
"All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow."
(2010, Steve Crandall)
On change for its own sake: "You can go really fast if you just jump
off the cliff." (2010, Steve Crandall)

[Posted in FML 6878]