Hello weezil peoples,
 
< maybe we need some anecdotes about long-living, healthy ferrets here ......
 
I think I can help here.  My oldest weezil, by the most conservative
estimate, is 12 years old.  I got Mr. Lugnut Chains from a friend 4 years
ago.  The weezil belonged to his parents and they started driving trucks, so
they weren't at home enough to take care of him.  So I ended up with him.
He was my first ferret I actually owned, but my SO at the time had a weezil
so it wasn't anything new.  I contacted the previous owners to see how old
he was.  They said they had had him a long time and would check on it for
me.  When they finally got back to me, they told me they had vet's reciepts
dating back to 1985!  This makes him at least 12 years old.  It's unknown
how old he was at the time of that vet visit, so in all likelyhood he could
be even older.  When I got him he was somewhere around 8 years old, and
other than a few sags and wrinkles where they weren't supposed to be, you
couldn't tell he was that old.  He would bounce around and wardance with the
best of them.  We kept with my SO's weezil, Scandal, and they quickly
bonded.  If there is such a thing as soulmates, these two were proof.  They
never did anything without each other.  Then came the day when a horrible
accident with a couch took Scandal away.  Lugnut immediately went to a
slump.  He became very depressed and didn't want anything to do with
anything.  Luckily, ferret math had struck us a couple of months before and
we had a silver named Insanity, so he wasn't alone.  I truly believe if
Insanity wasn't there to provide companionship, we would've lost Lugnut.
But with lots of love and eventually 4 other weezils, he pulled out of it.
He never regained his full vigor, but he's no longer moping around.  That
was 3 years ago, now he's 12 years old or better and it shows.  He's now
hypoglycemic and has had other health problems and spends more and more time
sleeping.  His back legs aren't too well coordinated anymore so sometimes he
has a severe list to port.  But he's the first one to sense when I'm
depressed and come over and try to lift my spirits.  I think he is trying to
pay me back.  And every now and then he gets a wild hair and will bounce and
wardance with the other weezils just like old times.  So until that fateful
day when it is his turn to move on, we all put up with his grumpy, taciturn
ways, like when he loses his dentures and hobbles around on his cane yelling
"Where's my teef?"
 
Mike & the Menacing Mustelids:
Mr. Lugnut Chains: "When I was a kid, we didn't have it easy like you
young'ens.  Why I remember when..."
food and we never heard of Ferretone"
Insanity: "Gee, old weezil guy, tell me another story"
Turbo: "No, not another story, I've heard them a hundred times"
Richochet: "Yawn, did somebody say something"
Marco(the Pom):"How said I was a dog.  I'm a ferret.  Now give me more of
that ferretvite."
[Posted in FML issue 1876]