Sukie writes: >I do know that I was told by someone in the know at MF years ago that >they had decided to not breed the pandas and blazes themselves. Okay here it comes. I've never said anything negative about Marshall Farms. And I'm not going to now. SO, please nobody here, twist my words and meaning into something negative or bashing about MF, cause I'm NOT. And I'm also arguing with Sukie, I'm just taking this opportunity to post something that's been on my mind. That said, I want to post, publicly, something I believe in my gut. It may reflect what others have seen in their geographic areas. What I say may not be correct at all in the end. But I have to say it, because it's been rubbing on my nerves for about two years now. Up until Jan of this year, for about the past two years, the pet stores in the greater Chattanooga area have been getting in abnormal amounts of WS marked ferrets from MF. There are times when a shipment a pet store gets in not one standard marked ferret or sable, but do get in nothing but spotted marked whites, pandas, blazes, and others with odd markings. At time's we're talking a dozen ferrets at a time. (this meanders off topic a little here) There is one very, small pet store here who would not sell a standard marked ferret. I finally went to this owner and discussed this matter (of how she kept selling deaf ferrets, etc). She claimed that the standard sables do not sell like the lighter colored ones and the fancier marked ones. The owner told me that the next shipment, she would pick out a sable just to show me how slow they sell (she only got one or two kits at a time, I'm sure she was splitting the shipment with another store). So she did. Now I can tell you that normally, her ferrets are gone with in a week. Sometimes those babies don't make it past two hours after arrival to the store without walking out the door. So this little dark one came in the following week. And it stayed. And it stayed. And it stayed. For weeks it stayed. It finally sold. She pointed out that she could have moved 6 ferrets in that time if it was not dark. Point taken. (okay here we go back on topic) I now understood how huge the public demand was for "fancier" ferrets. I saw it with my own eyes. So back to my point (sorry I meandered), a good portion of shipments had WS characteristics and were deaf. It has bothered me to no end. What's more, is that the very light Champagne ferrets from MF that came in were occasionally deaf. They had no odd white markings on them at all (no blazes, etc). Even further to this day, when even the darkest of ferrets come in, there are white tipped toes, bibs, white knees, etc all over them. It's like..... almost like..... the W gene and other genes manipulated for fancy markings are so washed out, the gene is ever where in the gene pool that I look. This may be good in one way. The more washed out the gene the less likely any problems may occur from it. But it shows me, that ferrets with strong W and KIT genes are being used in breeding there. I have no proof. I have no witness's. I have never been to Marshall Farms to see for myself, nor have I ever interviewed anyone there. It could be that PV and other large farms are seeing similar things, but since the pet stores here don't get ferret from other farms, I can't say. This is not a negative post. And whats more who am I to have an opinion. I am observant however, and this is the situation for this area. I have friends in Georgia who report the same to me in person. Just my observation. So as you can see, I just....... I have a hard time totally believing that MF never breeds any WS ferrets on purpose. I don't feel that the WS ferrets I come across are particularly robust from there either (they are deaf, etc). So. That's my take on it. That's what my eyes see here. Maybe there is an explanation here? One that a housewife cannot "see"? I've always been curious about this. And I've never brought it up, because few people are open minded enough and mature enough to discuss things that relate to MF at all. I ask that if you cannot reply to me scientifically, with an open mind either way, without regard as to what breeder or farm we are talking about, don't reply to me at all. Wolfy Wolfy's site has MOVED to: http://wolfysluv.jacksnet.com/ [Posted in FML issue 4064]