There are, by my count, at least 26 possible, easy to identify, tattoo spots on a ferret: top, middle, and bottom of each ear (6) and twenty toes (6+20). A code could consist of any combination of these 26 spots so that makes 2.6 to the 27th possible numbers that could be tattooed on a ferret. If you used the 6 spots on the ears as year codes and the toe spots as individual number codes that would still be 1 to the 11th or one of a hundred billion possible numbers per year that you could assign to an individual ferret. I don't think even MF breeds that many ferrets a year ;-). Somebody check my math please, I could be off by a hundred thousand but so what, its still a big number. This is how labs keep track of mice in mouse research colonies except they do ear and toe punches (ouch). If MF wanted to, and we would need to let them know reasons why they should want to, they could ID each and every one of their ferrets. The big job would be to keep track of info like which numbers are the parents of number 500,246 and what was the eventual outcome for 500,246. But hey that's what computers are good for. I don't think that MF will be too interested in keeping the records but they might be persuaded to provide info on each ferret to someone who will keep records. Then its a matter of getting vets and individual owners to report on the ferrets that come through their hands. There are folks who do research on ferrets that might be interested in the data base and might even be interested in working with record keepers. Also ferrets turn out to be pretty important research animals. I did a literature search of the medline publication data base and came up with over 500 articles, since 1993, using ferrets as research subjects. Only a few of these articles actually pertained to health issues in ferrets. Most were using ferrets as research model systems for various human diseases. Like: heart function, influenza, sensory system and neurological development (especially visual and auditory development), dental research, ulcers, smooth muscle function, various microbial infections, relief from chemo symptoms ect. Some of this stuff is pretty hard to think about when it involves ferrets and enlisting help from any of these folks is a lot like laying down with the devil. But, some of them probably get their ferrets from MF, or at least some of their colony founders may have come from MF, so they may have some interest in effects of breeding and or early environment on ferret health. One of the names that comes up a lot in those articles that seems interested in ferret health issues rather than just using ferrets as a disease model for humans is a Dr. JG Fox at MIT's Division of Comparative Medicine in Cambridge. Most of his (or her) articles appear to be case studies of diseases in ferrets rather than experimental studies that cause harm to ferrets - so nobody go off half cocked blaming him for the death of ferrets. This is someone that might be interested in the kind of study some of you are talking about. If someone wants to organize this info, I will be glad to send them the refs and abstracts to those articles that pertain to ferret health. Max [Posted in FML issue 1987]