I'd like to add my meager 2 cents worth on the issue of whether or not to buy ferrets coming from Marshall Farms. First, the disclaimer: I'm not a vet and I'm not a breeder (although I tried it for a while and decided it was too much work). re: Marshall Farm ferrets are inferior because they are the product of mass-breeding. My experience is exactly opposite to this. Marshall Farms is breeding to sell ferrets. They breed for healthy, high-yield animals. I've heard they don't pay much attention to the coat colors, breeding instead for health and lots of kits. Leaving whether or not using ferrets in labs is morally correct aside, this kind of breeding program will be more likely to breed lots of the most common coat colors and very healthy ferrets. In my small experience, I've seen more problems with small breeders trying to achieve interesting coat colors and breeding in recessive problems. I'm sure there are very conscientious people out there, carefully breeding for health and intelligence, as well as interesting coat color, but the only money to be made for a small breeder would be in coat color. And I've met enough people who are definitely in it for the money to wonder about the long-range effects. Small breeder-breeding seems to be a fairly new thing -- at least in any high numbers. When I bought my ferrets, the only place you could get a ferret in my area was through the pet store. There was a local breeder in the neighborhood, which my kit supposedly came from, but they "sold" their kits to Marshall Farms, who then neutered them and they "bought" them back. At the time I got my first ferret, there were no vets around who would neuter a ferret for less than $150-200, and were being sold in pet stores for $129, and I got mine on sale for $89. I was told by the breeder that they had a deal with the local pet store that they wouldn't sell ferrets themselves, otherwise the pet store wouldn't take their ferrets. And I don't know how other breeders work, but these breeding ferrets were not pets. The breeder explained that due to them being in season, that I shouldn't try to pet them, and that some of her best breeding ferrets were great mothers, but would take a chunk out of you. And the way they were kept was certainly not like pet ferrets, but with lots of ferrets, I'm not sure there was a more efficient way. She kept them in a garage with a thermostat to run the heater/air conditioner. The cages were stacked 3 or 4 high (it's been a few years and my memory isn't that great) with no pans on the bottoms. Under each layer of ferret cages was a plastic sheet angled down to a trough. Several times a day, she'd use a garden hose and squirt the plastic off and rinse it down the sewer. It stunk *really bad* in there, but the ferrets were healthy, well-fed and all had lots of water. She had around 40 ferrets, all in separate cages. My friend bought a ferret from another pet store (in the same chain) around the same time I bought mine. Both supposedly came from the same breeder, but mine had a tattoo on her ear and my friend's didn't. My friend's ferret bit, but mine didn't. I believe my ferret really came from Marshall Farms and hers came from the private breeder. My ferret caught the flu shortly after I bought her, and not knowing anything about ferrets, she got VERY sick before I realized she wasn't acting normal. Her temp was over 110 when I rushed her to the after-hours vet, and she had some brain damage, so I can't really compare the health of both ferrets equally. My friend's ferret is more muscular, doesn't bite anymore but has a "thing" for plastic and freaks women occasionally by insisting that fake fingernails are fair game. Her ferret has learned how to get out of four different kind of latches on the cage -- my ferret doesn't try. My ferret has no sense of balance and will fall off tables and shoulders. Her ferret hangs on well, and doesn't hit the ground unless she meant it. My ferret will go back to the cage when she's tired or has to poop. Her ferret prefers the couch and prefers corners to the litter box (even inside the cage). My ferret gets motion-sickness when I put her on the dashboard of a moving car or carry her in a handbag. My ferret never, ever has bitten and has always had such a sweet temperment that even small children can hold her without worrying about her biting. If she's hurt, she just cries. She doesn't know how to hunt, but the other ferret made short work of a wild bird stuck behind my refrigerator. Many of the differences, though, could be attributed to the high fever. Of the ferrets I've met socially at science fiction conventions and elsewhere, the ones with the tattoo on the ear (presumably from Marshal Farms) have all been totally sweet, non-biting pets. The others were about 50/50. I suspect some of the non-tattooed ferrets that bit were really fitch ferrets because their noses were more pointy than is the 'desired' ferret nose. And more pointy than Marshall Farms ferrets. Perhaps private breeding is working towards the high standard of private breeders of dogs and cats, but right now I don't feel it's quite gotten there. "backyard" breeders seem to me to be more common (and harder to discern) than backyard breeders (and puppy mills) of dogs, for example. At least in my area (PA). I would never discourage anyone from buying from a private breeder, and it really is helpful to be able to talk to a breeder to get the 'inside scoop' (heh, heh) on ferrets and their behavior, but I really don't think that totally dismissing Marshall Farms is warranted. And in the end, it seems to matter more to the ferret (in health and behavior) where they spend the rest of their life than where they began it. At any rate, let's not start a war on whether a "convenience" kit is better or worse. At least not until all the states accept ferrets for the nice pets that they are. --Barb-- PS I *like* my ferrets small ... they don't eat as much or poop as much ... [Posted in FML issue 0369]