Hello everyone,
 
I haven't seen any activity on the ferret mailing list so I
thought now might be a good time to pass along a little warning
about ferrets and skin cancer.  Apparently ferrets are
susceptible to a variety of cancers and skin cancer is not
uncommon.
 
[I've been pretty busy...  Sorry about that]
 
We have three females, Zoot (5 years), Lupine (3 years), and
Cutout (2 years).  Zoot and Lupine are sables, Cutout is white
with black eyes (I've heard that called a variety of things, which
name is correct>?).
 
This summer we noticed that Lupine had a small bump on one of her
flanks.  We (regretably) assumed that it was a bite or other minor
problem and didn't give it much more thought.  Lupine has an
exceptionally fluffy coat so the bump was hard to find and we noticed
it only by chance.
 
A few months later we noticed a scab where the had been was so
we took her to the vet.  At this point we still thought it was
just a minor problem and our main concern was getting making
sure the injury didn't become infected.
 
The vet shaved and cleaned the area and it was evident that this was
no normal scab.  It was a tumor that had become inflamed.
 
The vet said that she had seen this in ferrets before and that it was
not uncommon in older ferrets.  She did feel that since Lupine was so
young and the tumor seemed to develop so quickly that there was a good
chance that it would be malignant.
 
She excised the tumor and sent it for a biopsy.  Thankfully it came
back benign.  Lupine's doing fine now, she seemed oblivious to the
whole thing and she's once again fluffy all over.
 
Remember, ferrets have a very fast metabolism.  Illnesses can develop
very rapidly and prompt treatment is important.
 
Finally, I have a question.  Our vet says that our youngest has already
begun to develop cataracts.  Our other ferrets are fine.  I have read
that breeders tried for a long time to get the white fur and black eyes
combined.  Could these cataracts be a sign of some genetic problems
induced by breeding?
 
"Don't drive too slowly."                 Richard Caldwell
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[Posted in FML 0097]