>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]