Heather wrote:
>He told me that it really is a 50/50 shot..  I would hate to put
>Eddie through all of that and him just die anyway..
 
50/50?????????!!!!!!  We never lost even one to surgery so far and have had
ferrets in the family for 18 years.  I can recall WAY BACK when the death
rate in surgeries was 10% to 20% depending on surgeon and so on, but so
much more is known now.  WHAT ARE THE SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS WHICH CALL
FOR SUCH NUMBERS?  Is the adrenal growth secondary to lymphoma?  Does
the ferret have a serious heart condition?  If there is not a special
consideration then perhaps you might want to use the various resources
available to find a vet more used to operating on and using anesthesia on
ferrets.  Please, also read and check out links from resources such as
http://www.ferretdoctor.com, http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html,
http://www.ferretcentral.org, and http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc .  Be sure
that pathology is done afterwards by a ferret-knowledgeable veterinary
pathologist.  Also, what type of fur loss is seen?  What we've seen at home
is that the ones with only tail loss have had skin disease, typically, but
the ones which have lost seriously on body or head (sometimes with or
without losing on tail) have had adrenal growths.  Remember that we aren't
vets, but do have long experience so take it for what it's worth, only.
 
Nipples: well, just take a look around at a beach sometime.  Males DO have
nipples.  They just usually don't have breasts and the glandular tissues
develop greatly like they do in females.  (Of course, that can happen, too,
for a wide number of reasons from genetics apparently to smoking pot at an
early age...) So, expect nipples; they aren't gender dependent in ferrets
anymore than they are in humans.  This question comes up about 1 to 3 times
each year, BTW.
[Posted in FML issue 2974]