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Post by Sherry on Feb 13, 2012 16:55:26 GMT -5
That's ok I assumed you'd thought she was talking about mill babies
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Post by Heather on Feb 13, 2012 16:59:59 GMT -5
If you notice...my first answer to that question was about farms too Then I realized that we were talking about home bred ferrets ciao
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2012 18:09:01 GMT -5
Oh, so I was not alone. That report still torques the h*** out of me. May the people responsible be acquainted with a cattle prod.
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Post by Sherry on Feb 13, 2012 20:11:03 GMT -5
May the people responsible be acquainted with a cattle prod. Be right there with you
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Post by joan on Feb 13, 2012 22:52:50 GMT -5
I would think that even breeding Sables, plain, straight Sables much like mine, there would be defective animals produced. Animals with misaligned jaws, twisted spines, hip & shoulder faults, defective wrist or ankle joints, plus animals who have sensory & nervous problems, but immune system defects & so on. What happens to those ones? I'm assuming they are humanely euthanaised, kept by the breeder or sent off the special needs homes, but certaintly such ones pop up on the occassion. IME, the types of defects you list may not be that uncommon in kits from a background of fancy colors, but are extremely rare in kits from a sable only background. I've only ever had one kit with the type of physical defects you list...his sire was an outcross to my inbred line. It was apparent at 4 weeks that he had serious structural problems and still couldn't walk at 6 weeks...he gave every indication of having the "swimmer" syndrome, so was euthanized. His parents were altered and placed as pets, as were all his littermates. I did keep a half brother and 2 half sisters from another litter...same sire and the dams were half sisters. Both jills were bred to their litter brother, as I wanted to be sure that they didn't carry the same problem...all the kits (11 in one litter and 13 in the other) were completely normal. My jills have almost always been comfortable with me looking at their kits, so I rarely have any problems with keeping a close eye on the kits from birth on. I want to know how many were born, as well as any deaths at early ages, as that can be an early indication of problems developing in the line. The commercial breeder I got my original breeding stock from had told me that his sable litters had very low mortality, but the silvers and other fancy colors tended to have a 50% or more mortality rate by the time the kits were a few weeks old. I've rarely lost any kits after the first 3 days...4 kits in 13 years of breeding. It was obvious that something was wrong with them, as they failed to gain weight at the same rate as their littermates. But then I've always used sables with full pigmentation...that includes fully pigmented dark brown/black noses. Sables with dilute pigmentation and/or pink or mottled noses are the first indication of genetic weakness...and I've never used any such kits for breeding.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2012 5:53:11 GMT -5
I've got a Black/Dark Eyed White ferret called Bailey being boarded here at the moment (I do ferret sitting for people). When she was little (know her since she was a little kit at 10 weeks old) I noticed something odd with her face, like the skull had stopped forming on one side. Much to say, her teeth are misaligned & if I can get a decent photo & sucessfully upload, I'll show you. Admittedly, she's a fancy type, but thought it something interesting to note.
As for pigmentation, does the nose colour really have that much effect? If you were to cross a dark Sable with a pink nose to a dark Sable with a black nose, half siblings/full siblings/what have you, would it really cause great issues with litters? My 3 original Sables (Missy, Scarlet & Lucien, photos uploaded somewhere here) parents were brother & sister, one with a pink nose the other with a dark nose, but all 4 kits turned out fine. Would that go the same for following generations should the same pattern be practiced?
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Post by Heather on Feb 14, 2012 12:46:59 GMT -5
Some defects or mutations are not going to show any issues, at least with the first couple of breedings, that's why they're dangerous. That's why breeding can be a bit of a crap shoot if there is no background. They happen continuously and may not be important to that generation, they may not even be important to the next...but..that's the problem with recessive genes. They don't show up until they get doubled up Ok....you have two sables one with a pink nose, one with a dark nose...the pink nosed sable is a brown (got to love this book)....**"the final step in eumelanin synthesis converts brown pigment into black pigment. If this last step doesn't happen eumelanin stays brown..a brown mutation. The resulting coat colour is chocolate". To get a brown, there has to have been an albino somewhere in the breeding past. Brown is a Oculocutaneous albinism type 3. Black eumelanin dominant, brown eumelanin recessive. **"The B-locus for TYRP1, an enzyme that catalyses the final step in eumelanin production changing brown pigment to black pigment. It is believed when brown is expressed that the final step in eumelanin production has not taken place, hence the pigment remains brown". These ferrets also roan out or go gray, sometimes actually going white if they live long enough. DEWs, are one of two...the most common is the salt and pepper type or silver who eventually within a couple of years go white. The other is what is called a dark ferret with a big white spot covering it's whole body, also known as irish spotting. Badger stripes, Blazes, Pandas....**"In ferrets these markings almost always carry a congenital defect, which shares some similarities to the Waardenburg syndrome in humans. Waardenburg-like coat colour patterns not only cause these white face markings but also cranial deformations in the womb, which broadens and flattens the skull leading to partial and total deafness. And beyond that, the cranial deformations also lead to a higher instance of stillborn kits" It wasn't until I started to study genetics in ferrets did I understand some of the issues I was seeing in dogs..(go figure) I had pyrenees before I got into wolfhounds. There are two types of pyrs, all white and the belaro (marked). I had discussed with the breeder a number of times what determined his choices, one was making sure he always bred an all white to a belaro. When I asked him why he said that, he said the all whites were coloured dogs with big white spots and the breeding the two together ultimately created a disaster. When I asked him why, he just said it did. The one dog I had was an all white to all white breeding by 3 generations. The dog was a complete idiot. He was aggressive, dumb as a stump, had a huge broad flat head....can you see where this is leading? and partially deaf. We think we have issues with a 3 and 4 lbs waardenburg ferret, try dealing with 120 lbs of waardenburg. Anyway, I hope that explains a bit of what you were looking for . ** reference Fret Poppers's The Coat Colour Book** ciao
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2012 14:05:32 GMT -5
Heather, where did you get that book?! It sounds wonderful! I'd love to buy a copy. Might have to google that....
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2012 18:08:36 GMT -5
I used a copy of the Stormy the Polecat pic in reference to this website. I hope it doesn't bother anyone. (yep, I'm begging forgiveness) Just trying to educate the uneducated and save some poor fuzzies some stress.
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Post by Heather on Mar 14, 2012 18:20:42 GMT -5
Can't see that it would be an issue. Are you talking about the pic that Mikey posted of the polecat on the post? ciao
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2012 18:24:54 GMT -5
When I get more time, I'll read through this thread.
However, someone said once, "When it goes right, it's line breeding. When it goes wrong, it's inbreeding."
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2012 19:27:40 GMT -5
This is just fascinating... I know nothing about breeding.... So it is ok, to breed litter mates? Either dog or ferret? Won't that cause problems?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2012 9:34:32 GMT -5
to Heather- Yes. Just some '(not) business cards' I gave to the stores here that sell ferrets. If folks need more info on fuzzies, they can know to come here.
to Konotashi- that's ironically funny, but not quite accurate.
to Klaudia- If the breeder knows the genetic traits of the two ferrets to a great extent (meaning their jill and hobs parents and their parents and their parents, etc)and knows what traits they are breeding for, then yes. Some traits are passed down through maternal lines and some traits are passed down through paternal lines and some get passed down regardless. 'Recessive traits' kind of hide out and then only show up when the genes for that trait are doubled up(?). You can go generations without the recessive trait showing up. The breeder REALLY needs to know which ferret has which recessives to make the decision to breed siblings. That's why farms have a high rate of genetic problems, they don't keep track of bad recessive or dominate traits, they just breed for profitable characteristics, like DEW or other fancy colors.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2012 12:01:41 GMT -5
Gotta love those BYB.... This just makes me more angry at those people... Breeding has to be left for the professionals. You have to breed to improve the animals. As most of you know, I have a Pit Bull, and I obviously adore the breed. But unfortunately they are highly bred for profit. I used to volunteer at my local shelter, and I saw way too many overbred pits. Agressive (which is NOT a trait for this breed), malformed, most of the times with underbite, short....etc. List goes on and on. So sad.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2012 20:25:55 GMT -5
I'm with you there, people messed up the fighting breeds of dog, the breeds aren't necessarily more dangerous than any other, just trained and abused into antisocial behaviors.
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