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Although the circumstances in which these fuzzies are bred and kept have improved, mostly thanks to animal welfare organizations, there are still a lot of downsides.
These ferret farms are basically fuzzy factories.
The fuzzies are bred on such a large scale, that they hardly ever come into contact with a human.
When they're shipped off to the pet store, they are not housetrained, not used to being handled by humans, not used to any of the normal household sounds.
Even in most pet stores the interaction with humans is extremely limited.
And the cages where they are kept 24/7 are way too small as well.
Another issue with ferret farm fuzzies is poor health.
The only thing these fuzzy mills are interested in is making money.
Just like puppy mills.
They don't care about genes and bloodlines, genetic diseases and behavior.
They don't care that whoever buys one of their ferrets might have to say goodbye to it in less than a year due to illnesses.
They just want to "make" as many fuzzies as they can with as little resources as possible.
For example, adrenal disease is very common in the US, where most fuzzballs come from farms, while it's still relatively uncommon in Europe, where most fuzzballs come from private or local breeders.
Most ferret farms in the US spay/neuter and descent their animals before they are shipped off to pet stores.
Descenting is not necessary and even illegal in quite a few European countries.
And as for spaying or neutering an animal at such a young age, the new owner can easily let a vet take care of that when the animals are full grown and have reached adulthood.
On the other hand, only selling altered animals will prevent "accidental" litters that might have trouble finding a home.
And it prevents the females from dying when they're in heat and not being used to breed.
Though in all honesty, I think the new owner should be (made) aware of this problem with unaltered females before she takes the furball home.
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