>In the majority of cases, these diseases become a problem when the
>ferret is between 4 and 6 years of age and invariably are the ultimate
>cause of death.
 
Bob, I have to disagree with the "invariably" part.  Just from our ones at
home (where in our about 18 years about 19% have had pancreatic tumors, and
about 25% adrenal growths of any type (3 types included in total)) with the
two cases where the disease was lympho-based the individuals eventually
died of that cause but otherwise these haven't been the causes of death
here.  Meltie went over three years after her growth was removed and never
had any other adrenal problems.  Now, we had (past tense) the absolutely
BEST vet surgeon who has ever worked on any of our critters during much of
that time (Hanan Caine) but he has moved to NYC to be close to his fiancee
(and last I heard hasn't decided where to work, yet, since he's taking a
short vacation first and a lot of places wanted him immediately when he
asked) -- so it could be that his extremely great skills went a long way in
our good fortune, or perhaps something else did.  I have no idea, at all.
All I know is that these growths have not been as common here as some other
people have encountered, that the youngest we have had with such growths
so far has been 5 years old -- despite our guys coming from a range of
sources, and that we certainly have had more individuals who had those
growths but eventually died of other causes than ones which died of the
growths.  Right now in our crew at home we have Meeteetse who has been
something like 1 and 1/2 years I'd guess off-hand since Hanan took out her
adrenal neoplasia with no reoccurance so far, luckily, and Warp will have
to have an adrenal surgery soon plus she had insulinomae out around a half
year ago (so recheck at same time, of course).
 
I am SURE that there are others here with lower rates of these medical
problems than we've had just from what some people have said here on the
list about their busynesses.  It would be interesting to me to know for
low-rate homes what they see as a reoccurance rate.  They may be doing
something very right -- or may not have some sort of contributing factor
for one of these illnesses which we can't easily control like a silent
virus -- could be something never even considered to date.  Who knows?
I sure don't.  Don't even know if reoccurances are lower for such homes,
but am interested in hearing from people with such homes and finding out.
Sometimes I wonder (at times worry even though there is no factual basis)
if ferrets which have been through ECE have a worse time with such things
or have higher rates.  We didn't have that here until a few years ago.
[Posted in FML issue 2967]