>Is it really just a coincidence that they both had rattail and adrenal?
 
It might be; both are common conditions so finding them together (or
separately) is no surprise.  It also might not be because sometimes
adrenal growths are hard on the skin so especially if there is already a
tendency to have such problems it might be made worse.  With each being
so common and the symptoms that show with adrenal growths having a good
bit of variety among individuals there's nothing cut and dry about it.
Perhaps the best thing may be that if it's obvious that the sebaceous
glands aren't happy then try treating for "rattail" and if it doesn't
respond well then realize that something else MIGHT be going on so become
more vigilant with that individual about skin and fur health elsewhere,
the ability or urinate for males, the size of vulva in females, behavior,
abdominal shape, etc..
 
>Bear is being evaluated now and what was thought to be Lymphoma by a
>former vet may not be so.  I have felt that she was more apt to have
>Adrenal problems and my vet agrees.  We are not saying she does not have
>Lymph problems but there are too many other things she has going on...
 
Misdiagnosis of lymphoma/lymphpsarcoma is very common.  A lot of that
happened/happens because there was a study which was trying to find out
if it could be diagnosed by blood tests.  Well, somehow that got turned
on its head with people acting like the hypothesis was a fact.  Not only
that, but it turned out that in study the hypothesis turned out to NOT
work; lympho can NOT be diagnosed by blood sample.  There's a really GREAT
section on that in: http://www.afip.org/ferrets/Clin_Path/ClinPath.html
Titled: "Controversy and Confusion in Interpretation of Ferret Clinical
Pathology".
 
The sad thing is that there were a few folks who -- because of this
rumor -- just gave up and put down ferrets that likely had decent lives
ahead of them.  That problem has at times happened when people mistakenly
think that insulinoma or adrenal growths must be cancers.  To learn the
straight story on anyone here can see the definitions cross-posts on such
things at http://listserv.cuny.edu/archives/ferret-search.html or the
originals at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ferret-Health-list
 
>In the last couple of days, we have noticed the one female (suzie) has
>occasionally flipped onto her back and batted the spout of the bottle...
>WHY is she doing this?
 
Probably because she is smart, playful, and inventive!  Good for her!
 
>and as I recall called the fruits "horse apples," though I can think of
>no reason to do so
 
More laughter.  On some eastern farms (having spent much of childhood on
relative's ones) that names refers to what comes out of the horse, not
what goes in.  There was also "cow flop".  The "s" word was the general
from word around us and the "c" word was the bad one; while in Utah farms
the "s" word was the bad one and the "c" was the general one, so when my
then-future mom-in-law and I first met we each thought the other had a
dirty mouth.  (Non-farm people who don't have to shovel/dry the stuff
must think all farm people are awful...)
[Posted in FML issue 3565]