Q: "What is your take on the breeding controversy?" [Regarding a lengthy FML discussion I have not yet read, but the questioner wrote a rather long explanation] A: Hell, I admit I'm not a good breeder, but I'm willing to practice and get better. I have three problems with some breeders (not all of them, but some). First, I think ANY breeding that causes change to the skull or skeleton should be abolished. Not legally, but people shouldn't buy those ferrets, they should loudly complain and protest the breeding, and they should influence their clubs and organizations to place sanctions (perhaps disqualifications) against such showing such animals to prevent awards that might encourage additional breeding. This would include long or short-faced ferrets, unusually large or small ferrets, long or short-tailed ferrets, or those with obvious skeletal malformations. DO NOT MISUNDERSTAND. I am NOT saying people should not adopt or care for or love these animals, all I am saying is economics rule, so use economics to influence the decision. My second problem is SOME ferret colorations are tied to obvious genetic problems. A very intelligent and informed person asked me about this very subject while I was in Chicago, and I said that we are lucky that most of the nasty problems with albinos were eliminated centuries ago so we didn't have to deal with them now. Currently, albino ferrets have significant impact to their visual system; how could a retina that relies on pigments to properly function not be impacted negatively? And since pigments are also important to the function of the inner ear and brain, those are negatively impacted as well. There is a difference between albino, depigmented, and diluted, and thus far the worst problems appear to be in the depigmented ferrets, such a blazes or pandas. But here's the rub; people like these colorations and buy them. As long as that occurs, there is little or no way that the problem can be easily solved. Logic dictates that if you cull (sterilize, not kill) the deaf ones, the problem will cure itself. However, that solution is extremely simplistic because while it takes into account Mendelian genetics, it complete misses phenotypic plasticity. You have seen this yourself. Image twins; at birth they are completely identical, at 5 years of age you can tell differences, at 20 the differences are more profound, and at 40 many are like different people. They have identical genetics (genotypes), but different appearances (phenotypes). A lot of traits have phenotypic plasticity; height, for example, tends to code for a minimum and maximum range, rather for a specific height. Height, muscle mass, growth rate, intelligence, and even metabolism do not have set values determined by genetics, but rather a range of possibilities that allow adaptation to specific environments. What that means is, you can cull the deaf ferrets, but that won't prevent others from showing up. They are deaf because the pigmented cells required for the middle ear to function properly are not migrating at the correct time. Since these migrations are linked to coloration schemes with head or facial depigmentation, you can never guarantee that breeding for these traits will not result in deafness or other, more serious, problems. My third problem is breeding ferrets to polecats to increase size or intensify dark color schemes. Currently, ferrets are larger than polecats, but the weight difference is mostly due to nutritional regimes, not in size or muscle mass. Mink ranchers know that feeding carbohydrates to ranched mink results in faster growth and slightly larger animals. They do this because they want the largest possible pelts, and long-term health is not a concern. Ferrets react to the growth-stimulating effect of carbohydrates similarly to mink. I have a litter of ferrets that primarily eat meat; they eat some kibble just in case I have to board them. For the most part their diet is Bob's Chicken Gravy, raw chicken (including bones), boiled chicken bones, frozen mice and young rats, crickets, mealworms, snails, frozen goldfish, chopped chicken and beef livers and hearts, and various other cuts of meat. These animals free-range and are never caged. They live in a room illuminated by natural light, and if I need a light, I use a flashlight or an overhead fixture fitted with a red light. Popeye and Bluto were neutered at 18 months in the middle of a rut, and that was two years ago. On this diet, they have retained the "rounded-face" look of an unaltered male hob. The trick is, two things are going on. First, the type of food you eat influences the work the muscles have to do, which in turn influences the bone growth under the muscles. If you want a male ferret with a big head, don't feed it kibble. Kibble requires very little work to consume, and yet it wears down the teeth extremely rapidly. Because the jaw muscles do relatively little work, they atrophy. You see the same muscle loss in older ferrets, although age is driving the change, not necessarily food. Raw foods are tough they require a lot of muscle power to chew. If you work out, you know the result: stronger, bulkier muscles. The side-benefit is all that tough chewing, especially if the food is whole bodied with feather or fur, makes the teeth much cleaner. The point here is you can breed ferrets to polecats all day long, but those beautiful big heads will be lost soon after they are neutered and placed on a kibbled diet. As for breeding ferrets to polecats for color, it will make them darker if the polecat is darker. The reason is not necessarily color genetics. When you domesticate an animal, the resulting progeny are ALWAYS lighter in color (don't argue black labs or any other dark animals that were purposely breed to be dark). The reason is because domestication slows down the migration of pigmented cells, so that not as many are present in a given area of skin, so the result is a color dilution. If you breed a light ferret to a dark polecat and end up with dark kits, you will also have animals with polecat behaviors, not domesticated ones. It is BEING domesticated that results in the dilution of color, NOT fur color genetics. Understand, we are discussing breeding sables, not any of the depigmented, albinistic, or purposeful color dilutions whose color is the result of genetic changes. Ferrets were domesticated to scare animals out of burrows, so old time breeders looked for tameness and courage, not physical changes. Thus, the domestication of the ferret has resulted primarily in behavioral changes; a genetically tamed polecat. If we start breeding back to polecats, we would reduce those behavioral traits, making the offspring unreliable, perhaps even dangerous. That is my take on the subject. If you want me to expand parts of this discussion, remind me when I return from Europe and I will happily do so. Bob C: [log in to unmask] [Posted in FML issue 4674]