Hello Everyone, I am new to the fml but I have owned ferrets for 10 years, and I currently have 9. The reason I am writing is because I ran across a blurb in this month's Ferrets USA that was relavent to a previous discussion about Blaze Pattern ferrets being prone to deafness. So here it is, almost verbatim: Some medical conditions (deafness and being developmentally challenged) that may occur more often in certain pattern ferrets. The most common of these occurence of these ferrets arettributed to those in the "colmira" pattern. Tis refers to ferrets that have a badger, or blaze, pattern/marking.The blaze,for those that don't know, is defined as a white spot on the top of the head that usually trails down the back of the neck. Many of these also have white mitts and and white kneepads on the backback legs and white bibs in the front, Panda patterns (all white heads) also fall into this catergory. So far that is the only medical problem for blazes that i've come across.You can find the rest of that article and some more really great ones in the 2003 Ferrets USA page 108. I Hope This Helps, Lisa the Weaselmom, Tango, Beavis, Leia, Miles Chloe, Dudley, Buckman, Mickey, and Minnie ( Missing 8, Hugging 9) [Posted in FML issue 4061]