I saw this article about two BFF kits born in June at the National Zoo and the amazing thing was the fact that their father has been dead for about 8 years!

It got me thinking about how I wish I had had access to technology like that when I was breeding ferrets 13-odd years ago. We had a gorgeous sable male we called Chucky back in 1994 – he was such a handsome fellow with an absolutely wonderful temperament.

I allowed Chucky to be used as a stud before we sterilised him and we got the pick of the litter when the kits were born.

I ended up with CJ (Chucky Junior), who was as wonderful as his father.

He had the darkest mask I have ever seen and was such an intelligent, kind, funny boy. He was also one of the best weasel wardancers I have ever had – a ferret Nureyev ;-)

When he matured, I bred him with two of my best girls and they gave me a total of 12 fabulous kits. I desperately wanted to keep a boy and a girl from each line but Philip wouldn’t let me and so we found homes for all the babies and I never bred more ferrets after that.

Although I’ve had many great males since Chucky and CJ, I wish, in a way, that I had been able to do something like was done at the Zoo. Imagine being able to produce a line of superb ferrets with the best temperament over the course of many years down the track.

But then it brings forth a thorny question, IMHO, and please understand I am talking from a personal standpoint about breeding my pet ferrets (which I don’t do any more) – not about the breeding program of the black footed ferret.

If you have a terrific male ferret and you get his sperm and freeze it, would that mean that you – as a breeder – would ignore other males and just concentrate on using your favourite ferret as a stud all the time? And if that was the case, what would happen to the lines of the other male ferrets, who might be gorgeous in their own way?!

Breeders should always find good sires to put with their good dams – that is obvious. But would it be a bad thing to have the same male impregnating the jills throughout the years, I wonder.

I guess if everyone did that with their favourite males, the lines of the other males would die out and then you’d get to the stage where you would have to start worrying about interbreeding.

This is what comes from being away from my ferrets!

I start pondering about all sorts of peculiar things and am obviously spending too much time wondering about the meaning of life, instead of being totally amused by life ☺

Other articles you might like;

Filed under: Black-footed ferrets • Mustelids

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!