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Post by Sherry on Jun 3, 2011 8:45:45 GMT -5
For Joan's hybrid kits, from what I understand, it's not that they are "wilder", it's just that they are smarter, faster, and more agile ;D You are hard put to keep up with them, but they still bond with their person. And adore play. With the pic of the hob you are looking at, I see nothing unusual with his head conformation. He's an uncut hob, meaning he's grown into what nature intended him to be
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2011 11:29:07 GMT -5
This is from the AFA's breed standard sheet, if it helps explain the head shape:
"HEAD SHAPE: The basic shape of the head should be triangular - broad between the ears tapering towards the muzzle in an elliptical shape. The profile should be straight without a facial bump in hobs and may have a very slight bump at the plane of the eyes in jills. BULLDOG STYLE HEAD: The ideal shape of an intact or late neutered ferret’s head that exhibits a bulldog style is a rounded equilateral triangle. This means that the width of the head and the length of the head from the tip of the nose to the start of the ears, are equal. The length and width should be equal and the depth should be at least 90% of the length or width. STANDARD STYLE HEAD: The ideal shape of an intact or late neutered ferret’s head that exhibits a standard style is a small amount longer than it is wide. The length can be up to 10% longer than the width. Any more than this, the head is too long. The depth of the standard style head should be at least 85% of the width of the ferret’s head."
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Post by crazylady on Jun 11, 2011 14:39:04 GMT -5
Hi I have read through this thread with some interest ( though I must confess a lot of it left me scratching my head !) First in the uk there are very very few wild polecat matings ( the wild polecat is a protected species and it is against the law to trap or breed from it and it or its young are not allowed to be removed from the country ) that leads me to ask what is European polecat ? I have made lot of telephone calls to friends and have been told simple Bev its the new name for the english polecat lol next comes the word hybrid a hybrid is any colour of ferret except a albino that carrys the dominant polecat gene ( so yes silvers pandas sandy sable are all hybrids of the polecat ) because some where in there genetics is the link to the polecat that is how it obtained its colouration it could be 55 generations past but it is still a hybrid of the polecat because it carries its genetic make up the only true ferret is an albino every other colour evolved from a mixture of a a hybrid and the domesticated albino just my two pennys worth take care bye for now Bev aka crazy lady
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 11, 2011 14:57:18 GMT -5
Marshall has far more genetic diversity in their breeding stock than any other commercial breeder I'm aware of and certainly more than any private breeder has access to. I know of at least two commercial breeders from whom they obtained breeding stock in the last 15 years or so, one in the US and the other in Europe, and I'm sure there are others I don't know about. I also heard this from a veterinarian that i used about 5 years ago. his friend worked at marshalls for a while. unfortunately, the few breeder ferrets i have known (they actually belonged to a veterinarian that i usewd to use and he was a breeder also) have NOT outlived my marshalls ferrets. i have never owned a breeder ferret though. jennifer, i am curious, you said that your ferrets now are much healthier than your marshalls. but did you do the same thing for your marshalls ferrets that you are doing with these? (i.e., raw diet, no kibble, supplements, lupron injections, deslorelin, etc.)? i always got the impression that your marshalls ferrets you owned a while back so i was wondering if you maybe started feeding a good diet, etc. after having bad health issues with your marshalls (insulinoma, adrenal disease, etc.) i'm, just saying we can only make a true comparison b/w marshalls and breeder ferrets if we are doing exactly the same things for both and one group turns out healthier than the other.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2011 15:42:43 GMT -5
And honestly, even that doesn't prove anything. Disease predisposition can vary based on the genetics and other factors not taken into account (lighting, etc.)
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 11, 2011 15:55:42 GMT -5
true, yes genes play a part. but its not fair to make a comparison between two different breeders if you have not done everything the same with both sets of ferrets. that is my point. what you do at home and the food you feed them, etc. makes a difference regardless of where the ferret came from. regardless of bad genes, i think we can all agree here that a marshalls ferret that has eaten kibble his entire life has a higher chance of developing insulinoma tumors than a marshalls ferret that is fed raw meat after he is brought home from whatever piece of crap pet shop he /she is rescued from. right???
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2011 16:09:00 GMT -5
Agreed
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 11, 2011 16:26:40 GMT -5
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 11, 2011 16:44:30 GMT -5
my dad always insists that the sables are healthier. i thought the old man was crazy but maybe he's right. he has lived almost 80 years i guess he might know a little more than i do. anyway, he is the reason why i have only owned sable ferrets. btw, maybe once upon a time George Marshall was a good ferret breeder but when it became about greed and money and then his family took over things just got out of hand and now it is alot tougher to keep track of bad genes. how can they? they sell these ferrets off and there is no way of tracking them, no way of knowing what they died of, no way of knowing which litter they came from. a small private breeder can keep better track of their ferrets and their genetics. the problem is, ferrets are the #3 pet in the U.S. that means that alot of people own ferrets! small breeders can't meet the large demand that there is for ferrets. and if these responsible small private breeders do expand their breeding business to meet the large demand, well, then they'd probably have a higher chance of ending up like George Marshall and Doug McKay. too many to keep track of. i read somewhere that doug mckay's kids took over the business and ruined it. that's how it is with large scale breeders. they could give a crap about the breeding practices and just want to make profits. breed them, wean them and sell them on.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2011 11:40:28 GMT -5
A lot of what you find in breeding is what you look for. No doubt, my first 2 Marshall's boy were pathetic right out of the shoot. And my 4 privately bred ferrets are much, much healthier. By the same token, there was a Marshall's ferret that went to my vet that made it to 13 years living on cheap ca food.
There are NEVER and guarantees in life. Below is a picture of the worst of my 2 Marshall's ferrets at the age of 2.5 (he was diagnosed with Lymphoma at the age of 3 but lived to be over 7)......I believe most will agree that this type of pathetic condition is not the result of feeding kibble/early neuter.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2011 11:47:01 GMT -5
My Marshall's boy - 2.5 years old (over 10 years ago - maybe 15)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2011 11:57:13 GMT -5
Same ferret at 6.5- -7years old.....
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2011 11:59:51 GMT -5
let's try this again...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2011 12:07:39 GMT -5
Ounce-for ounce, Sabre was more expensive that the best racehorse on the planet. I will say that Dr. Wagner stated that the Marshall's ferrets do tend to get the worst cases (more symptomatic) of adrenal of all of the other farm ferrets and privately bred ferrets he has seen. He also stated that adrenal is genetic. Now, that does not mean that Marshall will always have the "most adrenal" ferrets over time. And, there have been privately bred ferrets for highly coveted bloodlines that have passed prematurely due to cancers/other illness which seem to have genetic origins based upon mmore than one occurence within related bloodlines. No guarantees!!! -jennifer
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Post by Heather on Jun 18, 2011 12:08:37 GMT -5
He looked gorgeous in his age, Jennifer. I sometimes wonder that our fuzzes take on a sickly look long before we see the symptoms, but because we're so close we often don't see it. Your little one looked sickly at 2.5. He was on pred when the last pic was taken? ciao
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