The more I read about breeders and their ferrets, the more I'm convinced it's time to start classifying certain ferret breeds. Yes, already I can hear the buzzing start.....who does she think she is? BREEDS? Yes, BREEDS. A breeder consistantly produces a line of ferrets that are, let's say, black sable, plush coated, large, stocky in build, with amazing dispositions. If those ferrets can be bred several generations and still be consistant, wouldn't you agree they could be considered a breed? If these ferrets, when bred into a line that is unrelated, started improving the line and the offspring began to look like the original huge black sables, isn't that a breed? In the cat world, they have a breed called the Maine Coon....it't not a "strain" of cat or a "line" of cat.....it's a BREED.....how did this breed come about? Barn cats began showing up with this amazing coat and growing to HUGE sizes, yet almost all had lapdog personalities...owners of the orignal cats started selectively breeding the biggest and best to OTHER barn cats that shared a few similar qualities....till they could consistantly produce a Maine Coon. 2 Maine Coons produce a litter of Maine Coons....not some Coons, some shorthairs. Same requirement for a ferret breed. I think that we at least have ONE separate ferret breed in existance already....the angoras. Breeders can consistantly produce them, they retain partial characteristics when obred with regular ferrets, and they have standard, but obvious differences. Is the ferret world ready to catch up with the rat world? The hamster world? The rabbit world? The cat world? The dog world? While some of the differences in the different breeds are amazingly drastic, and are OBVIOUSLY different, others are not. Greyhounds, afghan hounds, and Salukis look VERY similar....coat differences and size differences.....but same shape head/body/legs. I KNOW the differences in different lines of ferrets are super subtle... but that hasn't stopped the cat world....Siamese, Tonkinese, Balinese. All stemmed from similar roots...all still classified as breeds. What do you think? [Posted in FML issue 3324]