>From: Danee DeVore <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Update on Val's Litter Dear Danee, Viewing your pics it seems mother Valkyrie is mothering her six kits quite well. These pics take me back some years ago when breeding ferrets was a major undertaking here at Ferrets NW Foundation. Most adopters preferred kits rather than rescues and some had a more difficult time rearing them than they anticipated. The teeth of kits are just as sharp as needles, as you know by now. Although kits are seemingly cuddly they can draw blood with aggression that is unbounded, especially when mother ferret has fewer milk producing glands than the number of kits. They do not share equitably mother's nipples, the larger kit dominating all lesser kits so that monster man grows faster and larger than the lesser ones. How many nipples does Valkyrie have working? Does each kit have access to a separate one or is sharing a requirement if she has fewer that six? We were able to solve the needle kits biting by supplementing them with a soup mix,even before their eyes opened, the soup that we still use today. Adopters who dribbled our soup in their palms before handling a kit experienced the delight of a miniature tongue lapping their palms. Better yet, the scent of an adopters skin sensed by the licker turned out to be an amazing bond between the kit and the new owner. I remember vividly how pleased I was just to watch the adopter smiling with delight as the in-hand kit was raised to eye level and brought right up close to the adopter's face. Here again we stumbled onto another bonding method as the adopter's breath was sensed by the kit, most likely never to be forgotten especially since it was repeated frequently. And equally for the adopter the unique scent of a newborn kit will never be forgotten either. A question for you: how has or will the tail tape numbering be of benefit to you? I'd be concerned that the tail tape would contaminate all the other kits after the tape is contacted with the feces/urine and thereafter brought into the nest as the kits intertwine themselves. Also, how do you intend to remove the tape from the apical tail? Here at Ferrets NW Foundation we found that no two kits are identical in their markings after a certain age. There are always differences if you look carefully, or in the event the differences are so slight as to require magnification, then we marked the back skin just above the tail with indelible ink spots. I didn't know that Meesha had a litter previous to Valkyrie. Who is the fathering ferret and is he the same for both mothers? Can you tell us the intended disposition of the current litter and the past disposition of Meesha's litter? You must have given some thought to the prevention of inbreeding as well as crossbreeding. How do you prevent undesirable breeding after the kits are sold and out of your control? As a suggestion, you might consider nomenclaturing the kits in a manner that shows the geneological relationship of mother and father in the name of the kit. This geneological kit name would appear on the adoption certificate and could provide a clear benefit to preventing possible disasterous, albeit accidental inbreeding. We would like to know how you intend to protect you future F2 generations once they are beyond your control. In naming ferrets we have opted to use Japanese vocals for numbering the individual ferrets in a F2 generation as a suffix to their binomial litter name. For example, male A and Female B: litter name will be AB, such that all F2 gen kits are nomenclatured: AB's. Then to identify and name the individual F2 gen kits in the AB litter, the first one adopted would be suffixed as 1 in Japanese, or altogether, the name would be AB-ichi. The second kit would be named AB-ni, the third, san, the fourth, shi, and so on. Consult a Japanese/English dictionary on the net. Here in Seattle we have a sizable minority of americanized Japanese. Most like ferrets very much, once they are introduced to them. The practice of naming ferrets in partly Japanese names is apparently a highly desirable trait and has enabled us to adopt many more ferrets than if we used English numerals or numerals from any other language. The names of the numbers should be as short as possible, easily pronounced, and Japanese number names are perfect in this instance. As you all may know, pet ferrets are hot items in the islands of Nippon. Were you to relocate to Tokyo and open a small ferret shop. marry a Japanese, breed and sell high quality ferrets, you'd have no financial worries whatsoever ever! Just so you know the difference between linebreeding and crossbreeding is in the degree. Inbreeding mates father to daughter, and mother to son. Also brother to sister. *Linebreeding begins with mating half-brother to half-sister followed by mating of uncles to the resulting offspring (or aunts or cousins of all kinds in a close selection of lines). The development of a pure line will eventually occur. The line should be superior to the average in the breed. Longterm linebred ferrets offer the unique possibility that, along with other factors, may indeed reduce the frequency of adrenal cancer in ferrets that occurs today. Finally, a linebred pedigree is valuable or dangerous in exact proportion to the QUALITY of the individual ferrets from which you have selected. Linebreeding will give you a wider range of choice within your breed. Edward Lipinski Ferrets NW Foundation [Posted in FML 6276]