Just recently I had a chap in Scotland trying to post on the NFWS Web Site guest book regarding a hybrid hob that he is offering at stud. He stated that the ferret x polecat is a handsome and very friendly animal. I just don't see why these breeders have to re-introduce wild polecat back into the domestic ferret, thousands of years of breeding have given us a friendly, amusing little animal and these breeders are taking a retrograde step by re-introducing wild blood! Result is that we end up with a hybrid that is totally confused - it has the characteristics of both animals; does it run and hide when danger threatens or dash to investigate, is it gregarious or solitary, does it scream when a human approaches it or accept the attention. I once expressed my unease to someone who used to write regular articles for a weekly paper covering country sports. He didn't agree with my views and thought I was being over cautious... several month later, after he'd bred a litter of hybrids - someone had found an injured polecat hob and when it had recovered they had mated it with several jills before sending it to a wildlife sanctuary - his whole attitude had changed he'd ended up with a litter of kits that were near enough unhandleable and totally useless for hunting. I am not sure how many of the kits he kept for himself but he did write observations about the different traits between the hybrid kit and the ferret kits it was living with. I know someone who has a family of hybrids - she and her husband kept the entire litter and had them all neutered. These hybrids will not accept anyone else handling them and even then they just about tolerate it. Their reactions and the things they do are a mixture of ferret and polecat. BTW they took in the mother, an albino, as a stray and she presented them with a litter of 10 all polecat coloured and that's when the danger signals started flashing. The litter was DNA tested by a well known authority on Polecats to confirm that they were hybrids. -- Bolton Ferret Welfare Web Site: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ferreter/bolton.htm last update 5 Dec 2002 NFWS web site http://www.nfws.net Waiting at Rainbow Bridge:- Jill, Deanna Troi, Cameron, Carnath, Button, Bill, Bobby, Jasper, Inga, Holly, Fergle, Amanda, Sparky, Daniel, Blackie, Marvin, Claude, Bumper, Kurt, Tasha Yar, Larry, Lily, Ben, Fritz, Dax, Kelley, McCoy, Brock, Snowy, Dumpling, Buddy, Stumpy, Treacle, Max, Scrap, Vanessa, Sarek, Paw Paw, Badger, T.D, Spooky, Stanley & Tara [Posted in FML issue 4024]