>...using these drugs on a very particular schedule.  I have not heard
>of one with doxirubricin in ferrets, so I would be very interested in
>hearing your experience.  You are blazing a new trail here...
>
>With kindest regards,
>Bruce Williams, DVM
 
Hi.  I just wanted to mention that I know of two vets around 1998 that
were using doxorubicin with ferrets as part of a chemo protocol to treat
lympho, though perhaps this is different from doxirubricin?  I believe
one of the ferrets did exceedingly well.  The other was my beloved
Tarzan, who did not fare well.  I would be glad to send more info should
someone want it.
 
I am so glad to read thre is growing knowledge about neural tube defects
and parti- colored breeders.  A few years back my albino Claudette was
bred to a blaze and the result was neural tube babies, two born with
their brain crests outside their heads, one who was mal-shaped and died
within 24 hours, and Squeek who lived a few months, whose life I tried
to save, and who broke my heart (it was all so very heartbreaking!).
As the babies were being born I called one of the two breeders involved
in breeding the parti-colored father; she said they'd seen other neural
tube kits and they had decided the cause was a lack of folic acid, not
genetics, and they had continued to breed ferrets who had had neural
tube litters!!!!
 
I called a vet who had examined dead neural tube litters that he had
traced back to this breeder and he said the most likely cause was genetic
and due to breeding parti-colored ferrets, and advised that it was not a
good idea for both father and mother to be parti-colored or for one to
be albino and another parti-colored (though this probably wasn't as bad).
He and other vets advised to discontinue breeding the parti-colored
father of this litter.  I passed this along to the breeder, as the vet
who examined the dead litters already had much earlier.  She insisted the
problem was a lack of folic acid and had no plans to discontinue ferrets
who produced neural tube kits.  I was appalled and disgusted, to say the
least.  Claudette was altered of course and cherished her whole life,
which she lived with her sweet daughter Minnie (who came from Claudette's
first robust litter from a sable before I had her).  Both lived to be
eight-plus years; such lovely albino girls!  I miss them.
 
One of the two breeders involved in breeding the parti-colored father
later routinely adopted out her breeder ferrets when she was done with
them and eventually dumped a whole lot of ferrets in a shelter and moved.
One of the ferrets she adopted out was the parti-colored father bred to
Claudette; this ferret she claimed was the love of her life and the
incarnation of her previous ferret love of her life.  I can't believe
how easily she let them all go!!  She also acted as prime advisor to my
breeding Claudette, and only long into it did I learn her breeder ferrets
had never successfully had a litter!  The whole thing made me sick but
taught me a lesson I guess I needed about being very careful about who
one gets involved with, and how soon.  These were people who apparently
kept ferrets to stroke their own egos.  They also ran shows and judged
each others ferrets.  Guess who won?
 
Anyway, I was fairly new to ferrets when this whole sad breeding fiasco
happened, though I read many ferret books and was on the FML.  I had
caretaken many litters of kittens as a youngster before the cat
population explosion and happened to get whole ferrets through the
classifieds.  I wasn't looking for whole ferrets particularly but I found
myself with a whole female and male.  I now feel that breeding ferrets is
very serious business and best left to professionals, ethical ones.  I
forsook a chance to breed Claudette to my beloved hugely handsome sable
Tarzan at the strong urging of one of these two breeders, who was eager
to start her "west coast line" with Claudette; her breeders, she said,
had long healthy lines.  She sang gloriosas about the parti-colored
ferret's lines, but would never give me a copy.  I had done some detetive
work into both Tarzee's and Claudette's lines and, though I loved my
little Squeek, his was a sad life and I regret the decision not to allow
Claudette and Tarzee to breed.  We live.  We (at best!) learn.
 
If you made it this far thanks for listening!
 
Lynn, missing my own little gang of fur leapers, but loving my three
little nephew ferrets, Monty, Madison, and Beau
[Posted in FML issue 4075]