Somebody in Thursday's issue (sorry I don't remember the name, I would do a normal reply including quotes like most people do but with this stupid stupid program I would have to reproduce the entire FML and delete line by line by line everything except the few lines I wanted to respond to) asked about a large Canadian ferret farm-- this would probably be Hagen, the mega-pet conglomorate. As far as I know, there haven't been complaints about their breeding practices themselves, although as this discussion about Waardenburg's progressed I realized that my Amelia has most of the physical markers for it. Hearing seems selective but ok. And, as we all know, Canadian ferrets are bigger, stronger, and gosh darn it better looking than their American counter- parts... Just ask Rudy... ;) The negative thing about Hagen mentioned on the FML was their use of cedar chips in the ferret starter kits. Cedar chips, as the FAQ will tell you, may cause respiratory problems for ferrets. Hagen, after much attitude, bowed to public pressure and replaced them with pine, which may or may not be any better. Oh, Hagen ferrets will have an 'H' tatooed in one ear in blue-green ink. Hope this helped, Regina, who realizes that the undergrads must be coming back as suddenly the email program is taking twice as long-- this will only get worse and Amelia, who says, oh no, nt more time at the stupid computer [Posted in FML issue 1289]