>For the past 6 years we've not seen any "faked" MF ferrets, but just this >week I took in 5 young ferrets who may very well be "fakes". Their ear >tattoos are two dots, but they're in the wrong position, are larger and in >the wrong direction. The ink also appears as though it has "run," so that >the tattoos look blurred or like larger than usual dots. Is this what the >"fakes" look like? From what i have read it depends on who created the fakes; some didn't even have tats or drawn-on fake-tats (which it sounds like you have encountered), just fake papers. MF is NOT the only place that has had disreputable distributors and back-yard breeders (the ferret equivalent of puppy mills) do this to them. For a few years on and off there have been some quite in-bred and/or diseased, sickly creatures, and behaviorally-challenged fur fitch passed off as coming from several places that had nothing to do with them from what I have been told. Gather that happens to cat, dog and other animal breeders and farms, too. Guess it will come down to breeders and farms which sell to stores having to put WHICH stores they sell to on their websites with a note about having regular updates on a certain time-frame. [Posted in FML issue 3532]