We regularly visit a Pet Supermarket near us and look at the little Marshall babies in the display. This particular store location actually does a pretty good job of caring for them. But...we have seen *several* of these little babies who cannot be anywhere near 8 weeks old. Some still have their milk teeth! These babies are shipped from Marshalls to a regional dist. center, and from there to the stores, so there is NO WAY Marshalls can honestly claim that they never ship before 8 weeks. Unfortunately the dist. center goes the extra distance to manage to lose the birth documents, so we have no proof. I really believe this is a case of Marshalls shipping too early - NOT a case of the store requesting ferts so young. The manager at this particular location seems to share our dismay at the youngsters. As for the ferrets themselves, we have all Marshalls and they are a joy. The claims of excess health problems in Marshalls ferts are statistically unproven and appear to be unfounded. The ferrets are great! As for Marshalls products and business practices, well, that's another story. We avoid purchasing any Marshalls products (other than the ferrets) to avoid "feeding the machine." We don't want to encourage them, and would love to see more ferrets from more reputable breeders (Path Valley Farms, perhaps?). Unfortunately, once these little guys hit the stores, they need good homes just as much as non-Marshalls ferrets do. Roger Digger, Bear, Fox, and Sniffles [Posted in FML issue 3730]