Cherri Zask wrote:
>I never thought that I would have to go through any of this with my babies.
>I just pray to god that Skippy never has to go through this.
 
>I was thinking have any of you looked into pet insurance??  Do they offer
>it for ferrets?  Let me know if anyone does
 
In some regards this is like dealing with humans.  Some accidents might
happen at any age, some individuals might get sick when young (fortunately
usually survivable, but sadly not always survivable), most are going to
encounter health problems in old age.  (As with humans regular medical
care, good diet, lots of exercise, and other logical measures help BIG
TIME.)
 
MOST ferrets are going to have something expensive ($300 and up) happen,
from our 16 years of experience.  Even more will eventually have something
happen which requires careful nursing.  Fortunately, it's only a very few
which encounter such things when young.  Most here did so sometime from 6
years old (sometimes 5) and 9 years in our crew, though many of those went
on to live happily for some time afterward, depending on the problem(s) and
treatment (especially helped were those with adrenal growths, insulinoma,
cardiomyopathy, or enlarged spleens beyond a size where they could stay
because each of these problems has well established surgical or medical
treatments which help for a while if caught early and/or treated properly).
 
Take the money which you WOULD be putting into insurance costs if that
were available, and instead SAVE IT toward eventual medical needs.  We
figure that we MIGHT encounter $2,500 any year for any ferret over 5 years
of age -- $10 per week saved toward each ferret's care will do it with a
safety margin.  If you can't save that much then save whatever you can;
just sock it away UP FRONT.  We DO know that can happen earlier on rare
occasions -- in 16+ years (17?, 18?) we've been there thrice -- once for
juvenile lympho, once for a disease which can be spread through the waste
of wild birds, and once (so far -- he's got bone starting to be exposed
again so we expect more corrective surgery or surgeries as needed, and have
always expected this) for Scooter whose mother ate off part of a paw when
he was born.
 
We had expected early problems with Ruffle but she surprised us.  Since
Ruffie arrived here with multiple handicaps, deformities, misplaced
structures, and clinical retardation we knew she'd die early and expected
that at about age 5 so we planned for it economically, but she surprised us
and made it to being 6 years old when eight organs began to have
simultaneous but separate problems.  (After her death Bruce Williams wound
up with her soft tissues desired, and Bob Church with her hard ones --
which will later wind up in a museum osteological collection when she isn't
needed for his studies anymore -- since she was on the borderline of being
survivable so was valuable for research collections to help future
ferrets.)
 
You MUST plan for this sort of thing.  It's one of the reasons why it's
just plain foolish for people to have too many in the same age bracket, or
to have more than they can afford to care for.  I know that some marvelous
folks get around this by donating labor at their vets' offices to displace
some costs, but not all vets will be amenable to that, and the folks I know
who do it are trained in biology and known as trustworthy by the vets
involved.  This means WE ALL MUST SAVE MONEY toward future medical needs
and we must LOGICALLY PLAN for them.  ***Please, don't get too caught up in
ferret-math, folks!*** Time it and judge what YOU can cope with in terms of
time, money, and emotional cost (since losing several close together is
incredibly hard) so that you can be sure to not have more ferrets than you
can care for properly, and to not have too many too close together in ages.
 
Cherri, thanks for being so frank.  This is an important topic from SEVERAL
perspectives, and it's good that you let this part be mentioned for
people's consideration since planning will help many avoid a lot of pain
later.  People just can't think ferret math without also considering the
medical accounting or they are asking for trouble.
[Posted in FML issue 2768]