Let's face facts: it is fine to debate foods, and for all to learn that
way, but it is NOT fine to make false assertions about someone else's
ferrets, especially publicly. (That is why -- when I mention Kimmie's
ferrets here -- I let her own past posts do the talking about them. In
this case, just a tad from one of her past posts can be found near the
bottom of this letter. I know it's correct about her family because
they are her words rather than my assumptions, so i wish she'd used the
same courtesy of realizing that she knows too little about OUR family
to make the false assertions she made.)

As a gift to the FML membership (YAY!) I'm NOT replying to the food
comments because anyone who has been on the FML for a long while
knows that goes in circles, and anyone who is new is most probably
smart enough to check the archives of the FML and FHL:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/

What I do what to address is the very false implication given by
someone quite new to ferrets that OUR OWN ferrets have been short
lived.

Now, Kimmie has only had ferrets for something like two (2) years
(maybe 3?)* so I guess she has no way to know this, but despite her
assertions that our own crew have lived short lives the reality is
that ours usually have lived to late in the 7th year to middle in
the 8th year, with some living longer.

That is despite our almost always having ferrets who had pet store
supplying farm origins, so not bred for longevity, and also early
neuters.

We have had exceptions. Steve and i purposely took in ferrets with
serious deformities back when we could afford the time and afford to
spring for extreme veterinary care. (One of them needed $11,500 in
veterinary care in his lifetime.) We were able to get most of even
those badly deformed ferrets -- including ones who were hard to keep
alive pretty much from scratch -- to the age of 6 years with good
quality lives. An exception had a severe liver deformation, and
right now we have one who wound up having unexpected urinary tract
deformities and a genetic urinary tract vulnerability which almost
killed him as kit who is going to turn 6 years old and is still doing
well though we all know his kidneys may eventually get him. He had
rough surgical needs (Our vets says he was his hardest save of all
animals treated in his medical career, and that's incredibly amazing
to us.), and has special dietary needs for a protein level no higher
than 35% (only one of two we have had in almost 3 decades who needed
no more than moderate protein from early in life to be able to stay
alive), plus medication needs for a different reason (adrenals so badly
rubbed against during the hydronephrosis that they needed to come out
prophylactically) So, when we purposely took in ones who were known to
have ***major *** health problems stacked against them from the start
those ferrets did not make it to even 7 years. Then again, none of
those were expected by the treating vets to reach 4 or 5 so i guess
we did pretty well for them, didn't we?

We've had two bouts of the clumping form of lymphoma here. Thoset
took a number of ferrets at younger ages, especially the second bout.
Luckily, that form of lymphoma is rare. It is thought to be caused by
a virus about 3 years before the lymphoma shows up. You can read about
forms of lymphoma, including this form in
<http://www.afip.org/consultation/vetpath/ferrets/PDF/Lymphoma_Ferrets.pdf>

There were a very few other much more rare things that caused deaths
earlier, like JL.

Still, like I said, Kimmie gave an incredibly bad and false impression
of the life spans we have encountered and why in our 26 or 27 years
with ferrets, but since she has only had ferrets for about 2 years
(maybe 3 years or almost 3 years now (?) per her own past FML posts*)
and only been on the FML for -- what, a year or one and a half(?)* --
whatever, it's a very short time, I guess that i can't expect her to
know what we've encountered in our almost 3 decades ( 26 or 27 years
now) with ferrets in our family or bother to look it up, let alone
know why some life spans have been what they were...

As to the food stuff, see the archives, folks. Basically, almost no one
has any reason to feel guilty for their food choices no matter what
they are because hopefully (and I think it's a good bet) most of the
the people here are not going to be feeding the rot gut grocery store
foods-- instead going for the good kibble choices, but if they don't
use kibble will then will research enough to balance homemade or home
supplied foods.

* Kimmie's first FML post since her very short participation might play
into her vastly incorrect assumptions about our ferret family can be
found by just plugging her address into the address box in the FML
search feature in the FML archives and then setting the dates within
which to look and the answer comes up as shortly over a year on the FML
with her ferret who she's had the longest at that time being 1 (one)
year old.:
<http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/SCRIPTS/WA-FERRET.EXE?A2=ind0706&L=FERRET-SEARCH&P=R16102&I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches>

>Subject: Hello, New to the list
>From: Kim
>Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 18:28:47 -0400

includes:
>As an intro I now have three ferrets. One, my first, is Josie, a deaf
>panda 1 year old ferret...
>I recently adopted two older ferrets

I looked that up after writing -- which is why i made it clear earlier
that I needed to check -- so that I would not be speaking falsely. So,
those are her own words now.

Let's face facts: it is fine to debate foods, and for all to learn that
way, but it is NOT fine to make false assertions about someone else's
ferrets, especially publicly.

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html

[Posted in FML 6061]