Hello,
 
I recently received an e-mail from a person who said their female ferret
had gone into heat five times in the last few years, and yet was still
doing fine.  She wanted to know if I could explain this, since everything
she read and her vet told her that female ferrets will die if they go into
heat.  I was also under the impression that female ferrets usually would
not survive going into heat unless they were bred or brought out of heat
artificially.  I sent her an e-mail back asking about what made her sure
that her ferret had gone into heat, from what she wrote back, I am pretty
sure it is heat cycles, and not an adrenal tumor or ovarian remnant.  Can
anybody help me out on this one?  I would be curious to know for myself
also, as I am currently a veterinary student, planning on specializing in
ferrets.  Has this ever happened to anyone else?  For those of you in
countries other than the USA, do you regularly spay your female ferrets,
and if not, does it affect them adversely at all to go through heat cycles
if they are not bred?  Breeders?  Vets?  Please let me know.  I don't
usually have time to read the fml, so if you could e-mail me personally at
either [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] I would appreciate it.  If
you could also copy it to the fml, other ferret owners would probably also
benefit from the knowledge.
 
Thank you for your help on this.
 
Dooks and kisses to your fuzzies,
Shelley Knudsen
Class of 2004  KSU Veterinary College
[log in to unmask]  [log in to unmask]
http://www.tcgcs.com/~ferrets
402-463-0190  785-485-2443
[Posted in FML issue 3216]