I was just wondering if anyone has ever thought about this. We have
lost 3 ferrets that showed no signs of being sick prior to a quick
onset of illness, hind end weakness, lethargy, etc and within a week
they were gone. These ferrets were all checked and none of them had
insulinoma all blood tests were ok. We chose not to have necropsies
done on them but I am starting to wonder now if they could have had
adrenal disease or lymphoma that did not show any signs prior to that
like hair loss. They usually go through what I call weird tail time
in the summer but that has always been normal with all ours getting
blackheads on the tail.

The reason I am asking this is that we just had our oldest ferret 5 1/2
years old go in for adrenal surgery yesterday and he also had inselet
tumors. Prior to this he showed no signs of insulinoma and had mild,
very mild hair loss on the backs of his legs.

So my question is can adreanl disease hide,with no real symptoms,
migrate into cancer and catch up to them just at the end? The three
ferrets that passed were 3 & 4 when they passed.

THank you
Debbie

[Posted in FML 5459]