>I recently noticed that my 3 year old male, Brutus, has developed a round
>growth at the end of his tail.
 
This may be a chordoma (I believe that's the word...?).  One of our
fuzzies, Squirt, had a similar round growth removed from the tip of her
tail a couple of years ago, and the fert vet, Dr. Bruce Williams,
originally gave me this info.  These things are tumors that show up along
the spinal cord, and apparently in the ferret they often show up at the
last vertebrae -- the tip of the tail.  They are *not* cancerous, but they
do need to be removed because they will keep growing.  Of course, you can't
ever completely rule out the possibility of a cancerous tumor, so you'd be
best off having Brutus's tail docked asap and sending the tumor to the lab.
However, I can reassure you that the chances that it is cancerous may be
low.
 
-Tasha
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Dear Diary, Today my heart leapt when Agent Scully suggested spontaneous
human combustion..."
[Posted in FML issue 2734]