Dear Ferret Folks- I have NOTHING to do with ferret breeding, and want NO PART of the current "JD" controversy, I know none of the facts first hand there, and do not wish to speculate. I am just concerned about the difference between "inbreeding" and "line breeding", given some recent examples designed to show us the difference between the two. I'm told that examples of line breeding include mating a receptive animal to a grandsire, or to an aunt or uncle. Different cultures have different rules, but in *this* culture that's "inbreeding.", if you do it with people. I don't know anybody married to a grandparent or an aunt or uncle. It isn't legal. Me, I'm the product of two first cousins on my father's side, and even that is pushing it in America. (It makes me my own cousin. Go figure.) There aren't many states where you *can* marry a first cousin. It isn't legal, and apart from a cultural taboo, there is a very good genetic argument against it. How is having a child with your uncle any different than having a litter of kits with your uncle at the genetic level? It seems to me that the only difference is the absence of that cultural "taboo", as in ferrets don't know or care, and if you get a horrid result, well, you can take extreme measures to correct it. My grandparents, the first cousins, did not have that legal or moral recourse when my father was born, although he turned out all right. They tried and tried to have other children and never could.(Many miscarriages.) I think being first cousins might have had a lot to do with that. In any event, I'm not arguing that ferret (and other animal) breeders can get nice results with line breeding. I'm not arguing against the practice. But it *is* inbreeding, with a different name. It is inbreeding, at a somewhat more removed level. Go ahead and call it line breeding to indicate that remove, but don't try to say that it is something other than what it clearly *is*, to get around that cultural taboo. It is a kind of inbreeding. Alexandra in Ma [Posted in FML issue 4961]