Dr Judi Bell gave a lecture at our club meeting this past week, and I
thought it was outstanding!  She mentioned a couple of things I found very
interesting that I would like to share with all of you.
 
Adrenal disease - Judi agrees that there is a high rate of adrenal disease
in ferrets; her theory is that it may be due to life-style rather than diet.
"In the wild" animals are on a natural day/night cycle.  Pet ferrets are at
the mercy of our schedule - we tend to keep them under unnatural lights
which extends our day but may not be healthy for our ferrets.  She said they
need that "dark" time.  Judi has had many ferrets in her life, she has about
10 ferrets now, and has never had a ferret with adrenal disease - most if
not all of her ferrets have been Marshall Farm ferrets.
 
She has a ferret room for her crew and when it gets dark out, she shuts the
light in the ferret room and closes the door.
 
Now, I know a lot has been mentioned about England and Australia, their low
incidence of cancer/adrenal disease, and feeding whole, raw carcases to
ferrets.  But aren't many of these ferrets housed outside as well?  And
wouldn't that mean that they are on a natural light cycle and not exposed as
much to the unnatural lights?  How 'bout it you guys?  Are you keeping your
ferrets under natural lighting or unnatural lighting?
 
Food: Judi rated Totally Ferret as the number 1 choice!  She felt that while
the Marshall's food was a good food for pregnant jills and growing kits, it
might be just a little too rich for the average pet ferret.  (I am not
suggesting - and neither did she - that MF Food is bad - since most of us
blend several foods together, if your ferrets like MF Food, don't worry
about it - besides, she rated it number 2).  Of course, grocery store foods
did not do well on her list of choices.  BTW, Iams and Science Diet were #3
and 4.
 
Vaccines: TO PAM GRANT: Pam, you may have been correct when you told me that
Distamink is not the same as FerVac-D - at least not any more.  Prior to
changing the diluent in FerVac, they were the same vaccine, but not since.
Marshall Farms uses Distamink on all their ferrets, and Judi says it's ok to
use that on pet ferrets as well.
 
Judi still maintains that when using Galaxy on a ferret who has NEVER been
vaccinated with ANYTHING before, there is a potential risk for that ferret
to develop distemper.
 
Her love of ferrets was so apparent throughout the evening - she has a
3-legged ferret named "Tripod" that she had pictures of as well as many of
her other ferrets.  And she found it hard to stay away from our shelter
ferrets!  I wish you all could have been there!
 
Debbie Riccio
WNYFLFA
Rochester, NY
[Posted in FML issue 1559]