Thanks for the input on breeding and sweetness. Someone, I forget who, commented that if I took back every nippy kit I would end up with a whole litter on my hands. Now, understand that I would educate my prospective parents to ridiculous extremes. If, then, the nippiness of their/my kit still upset them, why not take him back? I don't want to go into ferret breeding to get rich. If I do it, I'll do it because I like ferrets and I want to be proud of the animals that come out of my house. Also, I'm not talking about nippy kits. Sebastian, the Prince of MarshallFarmlandia himself, was a nippy kit. Why, I remember wrapping myself in blankets like a burrito trying to get a few minutes rest, and having him burrow in nonetheless and nip me ruthlessly. He never ever broke skin, though. Mortimer is also a good natured sweet guy. Not a bone of malice in his body. He did suffer from near fatal testosterone poisoning when we got him... However, our Mithy is another story (nose biter from previous post). We love her, and she has a good home with us for as long as she lives. BUT! She's a bad pet. If I knew who bred and sold her, I'd call him and chew his ear off. I absolutely shudder to think of the catastrophes that might result if she were left alone with a small, screeching child. If I were to breed ferrets, I would want to breed all that is fine and noble about ferret temperament into my kits. I want people to be as delighted by them as I was by my first ferret kit, Sebastian. I want them to laugh when he bites too hard and gently reprimand him. Not handle with gloves, then abandon in the woods. That said, I probably won't have the spare time or money to actually breed the little buttheads for a few years. Also, one tiny comment on Marshall Farms. Someone said that the only defects noted are those that the kits have already when they leave the farm. That's not precisely true. Every Marshall Ferret comes with a guarantee and a registration card. If he suffers from a congenital defect detected within one year of ownership, they will exchange him for a new ferret. I know, this doesn't help when you love the sick one, and it doesn't change their breeding strategy. But screening various lines for cancer susceptibility is a herculean task. In fact, I don't think you could even have a significant effect on cancer rates in ferrets with traditional selective breeding practices and ordinary record keeping. The kind of technology needed to save the ferret population from cancer is exactly the same kind of technology we hope to use on the human population, namely, extremely sophisticated molecular biological techniques (gene therapy and such). It is easy to select for a desired characteristic. It is hard to select against an obvious undesired characterisitc. I don't know how you would even begin to select against hereditary cancer susceptibility. First you'd have to sort out which have genetic predisposition and which do not (not all cancers result from genetic predisposition). Then you'd be haphazardly culling hobs and jills everywhere to combat this, and in the end, probably to no effect. Why criticize Marshall Farms for doing something that no animal breeder in the history of the world has done successfully? (I owe a lot of you letters, and I'll get to them today or tomorrow. Sorry. I think I'll go home and look up that equation. You can actually calculate how long it would take to select OUT a characteristic from a population. I think it would surprise many of you.) Bests, Catherine Shaffer [Posted in FML issue 1702]