Howdy y'all,
 
I've got one of them exceptionally old ferrets.  His name is Mr. Lugnut
Chains.  His minimum age is 12 years old.  I say minimum because the people
I got him from had a vet receipt that dated back to 1985.  They don't
remember exactly when they got him so he could be older than 12.  I've had
him for 5 years, and I don't know what his past history before that.  I
think he had been caged most of the time.  His owners gave him up when they
started trucking and weren't home very much.  When I got him, you couldn't
tell his age.  He bounced as much as any 1 year old.  He was a very healthy
ferret too.  He didn't show any health problems until about a year after I
got him, when Scandal, his female companion and soulmate, died in a tragic
accident.  He became very depressed after the accident and didn't want to
move or eat.  I believe he would have died from heartbreak if it hadn't been
for the fact that I had just bought Insanity, a silver kit, a month before.
With Insanity to keep him company and extra love from me, he eventually
pulled out of the depression.  But his health was never the same.  He had
lost most of his bounce.  One winter he became very sick, wasted away to
almost nothing.  The vet couldn't figure out what was wrong and I came very
close to putting him down.  But the weather warmed up he finally pulled out
of it.  He also began having seizures, which I found out a year ago was
because of insolinoma.  I didn't have surgery done because of his age.  His
seizures began getting worse and more frequent.  Then I changed food from
8n1 to Totally Ferret and the seizures almost stopped completely.  His
general health also increased.  I was amazed.  He actually started bouncing
around every now and then.  Now his only real interests are eating and
sleeping, but occasionally he will get into a full scale rough-n-tumble with
the other weezils.  His back legs no longer communicate with his front legs.
They tend to want to go in opposite directions, which really frustrates him.
He'll fall over, and then throw a temper tantrum by waving his paws in the
air and attacking the first thing within reach.  Then he'll get up and
waddle off.  But he gets around okay.  And hopefully he will be getting
around for a couple more years.  Oh, and by the way, Mr. Lugnut Chains is a
Marshall Farms ferret.
 
Mikey B & the Weezils of Doom
[Posted in FML issue 2101]