Here we usually have our ferrets leave from late in their 6th year to
the middle of their 8th years.  We've only lost a few who were younger
(lymphoma types in all cases of the younger ones except for two who we
limped along who were born with with severe multiple deformities and
came to us due to their nursing needs who both made their 6th years, one
who died of DIM/mystery disease, and one who died of a massive allergic
reaction to an antibiotic -- the only ferret I've heard of who has
reacted to that antibiotic).  We've also lost a few who are older.
 
I think that we did a better job with the ones who have malignancies back
when I had a better sense of smell.  I used to be very good at smelling
malignancies -- and pretty early on, too -- and even helped a human
friend get tested early enough when a hug kind of raised my hackles
because I noticed "that" smell.  That smell caused us to jump early with
some whose surgery was life saving.  I simply can't do that anymore.  I
can still smell some recipes and list out the ingredients and do pretty
well at it, too, but that hard to smell cancer signature scent which not
all people can smell anyway is something I can't notice anymore.  That
change really bothers me.  Sloan Kettering is starting to use dogs to
spot GI malignancies; maybe vet hospitals will eventually provide a dog
sniff cancer alert system.
 
For some reason over 24 years with ferrets we have had very little
insulinoma in our ferret family.  If we add together the insulinoma
cases with the carcinoma ones and lymphoma ones that have occured in the
pancreas we've had about 20% with that combination.  We feed 35% protein
foods and have for most of the time we've been feeding (went to about
50% for a while but with two having cystine urtoliths we had to decrease
the percentage which has worked wonderfully for them so far).  We do NOT
give starchy treats -- NO breakfast cereal offered to ferrets here.
Aside from some dried cranberries (and in the past raisins) and sometimes
a taste of other stuff they don't get sweets but they do get a little
because of those fruits.  Oil (Ferretone for instance) is the most
common treat given here.
 
They get a lot of exercise.  With humans that makes a load of difference
in health, balance, mobility, bone mass, some cancer rates, circulatory
disease rates, mental agility, and more.  The two ferret people I know
who routinely have very long lived ferrets no matter the source of the
ferrets both provide a LOT of exercise -- they have the ability to have
larger and more intriguing set ups than our's.  When we have compared we
have considered the amount of exercise to be the one big difference they
had between their conditions and ours.  We have to cage the ferrets at
night, and most of the time they just get to use the one room which they
share with our study.  Space is expensive and tight here.  Every FMLer
has some types of limitations: time, money, space, vets with ferret
knowledge, whatever, and i *DO* think that our inability to provide them
with as much space of their own with tons of toys as we would optimally
like could well be why our ferrets don't have longer typical life spans.
[Posted in FML issue 4793]