Q: "Do you really think [kibbled foods] can cause adrenal problems...and
    is there any type of evidence?"
 
A: Most of my comments will be held off for a future post series on diet.
But as for the adrenal-specific part, it is difficult to say.  I think
without research, ANY discussion is error-prone, so I am reluctant to say
anything is certain.  But here are some things to consider; bear in mind not
a single point has been proven to cause any problem in ferrets.
 
Using pet ads, ferret books and articles as a window to the past, there was
virtually *no* mention of adrenal problems until the mid-to-late 1980s.
Those articles initially treated adrenal problems as a rarity, but that
started to change in the late 1990s-to-early 1990s.  Now it may be one of
the most common reason for surgery in ferrets, rivialing abdominal blockages
(and excluding neutering).  NOW, either all the ferrets in the Americas
since the mid-1980s are cousins and the traits is a genetic defect, or there
must be an environmental cause or trigger.
 
Using that same window of history, kibbled fooods for ferrets have also
become quite popular.  Create a graph in your mind.  One line the is incease
in adrenal disease in the last 20 years.  The other line is the increase in
the use of kibbled foods (for ferrets) during the same period of time.  I
have made such a rough chart, and I have to tell you, the lines parallel
each other.  They are correlated.  Add a third line for the popularity of
ferrets in the Americas.  That line also rises, but it rises at a lower
curve than the other two lines.  They are not correlated.  Adrenal disease
is rising at a faster rate than ferrets are becoming pets.
 
Ok, the lines are correlated, but are they cause and effect?  That I don't
know, and it is definately an area where research is needed.  Maybe ALL
kibbled diets are missing something and those ferrets suffering adrenal
disease are lacking a specific trace nutrient.  Maybe the meat used to make
the kibble contains nutrients that *IN EXCESS* causes adrenal disease, and
the ferrets are suffering from overnutrition of a specific nutrient.  This
has happened in people, where hamburger containing excess thyroid hormones
seriously--and negatively--impacted growing children.  Maybe the kidneys
added to the kibble still have some adrenal tissue added, and the hormones
are not being destroyed during manufacturing.  I can't tell you what is
happening, but I do know what a fish smells like when it rots, and this
mess has a very strange odor.
 
Q: "Can't inbreeding at [MF] have caused adrenal problems?"
 
A: So why do non-MF ferrets get adrenal disease?  I'll let you in on a
secret.  Ferrets in Britain are often quite inbred, and father X daughter,
mother X son crosses are far more common than you might think.  The practice
is normally done to "set" a characteristic, such as size, temperment or
build.  They have an adrenal disease rate far lower than our own.  Also, IF
adrenal disease was the result of a random mutation in American stock, and
increased in the population because of inbreeding, why is it so prevailant
in both MF and nonMF ferrets?  If the trait was dominant, all the offspring
of an host parent would have adrenal disease, but they don't.  And you would
expect at least 25% to have the disease if it were a recessive trait and
both parents carried only a single copy of the defective gene, but even that
is way too high of a figure.  At the very worse, adrenal disease effects 10%
of the population (FMLality), and the figure is probably less than 3%
(Reality).  And it would *never* show at all if it were recessive and only a
single parent had the gene.  This is not strictly a genetic problem, so
inbreeding is probably not much of a factor.  The key to the problem has to
be something in the environment, and will probably be found in the lifeway
differences between American and other ferrets.  Genetics might be behind
the locked door, but the key is hidden somewhere in the environment.
 
Q: "How has [the adrenal posts] changed your opinions?"
 
A: Before I really looked into the question, I suspected MF breeding
practices, photoperiods and diet or some combination.  Now I realize the
problem is a bit more complicated than that.  Perhaps I was secretly hoping
I could brilliantly discover some sort of commonality that would let me
pontificate a cure.
 
I literally have almost everything written on adrenal disease in ferrets,
and lots of stuff on comparable diseases in other animals, yet I cannot
definately say one aspect is more important than another.  Its a black box
where everything goes in and adrenal disease comes out, and I'm just as much
in the dark as the rest of you.
 
But here is where I stick my butt out for all to flame.  IF I am right and
the key in something in the American ferret lifeway, adrenal disease will
begin to increase all over the world as our ferret lifeway practices are
exported.  IF I am right, then adrenal disease will continue to increase out
of proportion to the number of ferrets being produced and yearly totals of
adrenal treatments will increase.  IF I am wrong, then the status quo will
be maintained, those breeders importing foriegn blood into their ferret
lines will reduce the incidence of adrenal disease in their lineage, and
adrenal disease outside of the Americas will remain rare.
 
BOb C and 19 Furbutts pulling for Jet.
[Posted in FML issue 2239]