>From: Lisa Whittleton <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Marshall ferrets > >After reading the post yesterday on "exposing" Marshall and their poor >breeding stock as well as shipping out too young ferrets, I can only >agree. I have one Hagen ferret, Bentley, who is a year and a half. He >is a big boy (near four pounds!), no health problems, super goofy and >loves life and people. Well, as another single point of reference my Hagen ferret Amelia has always been a big girl (usually a little over a kilo, hearty robust build), loves life and people, but was diagnosed with adrenal at age 5, insulinoma at age 6 and now has in addition to that a heart murmur, probable lymphoma, most likely the other adrenal acting up, and a mast cell tumor. She's also been mostly deaf her whole life (waardenburg syndrome). She meets all this with a lot of strength that I sometimes think is due to her breeding, but this is just to point out that these sorts of health problems are not limited to Marshall ferrets. Then there was Cully, of unknown origin, no tattoos (maybe a private Canadian breeder, as I adopted him in Quebec), and he had a similar complex of problems, although no heart murmur and no deafness. Again, just goes to show these problems aren't limited to Marshall ferrets. My ferrets have never even _met_ a Marshall ferret :-) Regina [Posted in FML issue 3743]