From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2006-06-09 15:00:53 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] RE: Ferret???
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
We have had a ferret who was diagnosed as having achondroplastic dwarfism. There are multiple types of dwarfism. Like many with that specific condition she had a very shortened face to the point where she looked male, very short limbs, body and head in normal range, a marvelous coat (I was always jealous of a friend's hair because many with this form of dwarfism have the best hair anyone could ever have.), and a huge amount of joint pain. Sadly, Ruffle was not just dealing with dwarfism; she was also markedly intellectually impaired (even for ferret body language), had asthma, and had multiple deformations. Her breeder was trying for a line of ferrets with long, thick, and lush coats that were always as soft as kits coats and also for a shortened face.
You can find a picture of Ruffle here; notice that she looks kind of like a chunky daschund (sp?). That is not a poor picture; her legs were really very short, and she also could never move with a normally curved back, but would straighten out. It is the second page of old FHL photos (ones from when we were in Yahoogroups) in the Files section of the FHL website
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth
<http://www.smartgroups.com/vault/ferrethealth/Old%20YahooGroup%20Pics/Ruffles_legs.jpg>
Now, years ago there was someone selling "midget" ferrets who was starving the kits early on to stunt them. Yeah, I know... Disgusting and appalling, but it happened.
Ferrets normally do have a somewhat wide range of sizes. It is generally not like the sexual dimorphism in some animals like gorillas or baboons, but the males are larger than the females, and there is a range in the population. Some people have noticed before that some places where ferrets were traditionally used to scare rabbits from burrows they tend to have smaller and more gracile ferrets, but that some places where the older common use of ferrets was for fur tend to be more likely to have larger and more robust ones. Even in such locations a range definitely exists.
Note: there are many things which are lumped into the term dwarfism. Traditionally, among humans those called midgets were in proportion between trunk and limb, whereas those called dwarfs had shorted limbs. These days may lump all together. (One thing that has always caught my eye is how many of those who worked for Barnum and others who were small or who were unusually hirsute wound up with advanced educations according to their histories because it looks disproportionately high compared to the general population at similar economic levels for the location.) To get a general feeling for dwarfism (in humans but emed write-ups are always worth reading and some things will generalize) see:
http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic625.htm
Author wrote:
> Is it possible for a ferret to carry a dwarf gene characteristics?
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