Hello, I recently received an e-mail from a person who said their female ferret had gone into heat five times in the last few years, and yet was still doing fine. She wanted to know if I could explain this, since everything she read and her vet told her that female ferrets will die if they go into heat. I was also under the impression that female ferrets usually would not survive going into heat unless they were bred or brought out of heat artificially. I sent her an e-mail back asking about what made her sure that her ferret had gone into heat, from what she wrote back, I am pretty sure it is heat cycles, and not an adrenal tumor or ovarian remnant. Can anybody help me out on this one? I would be curious to know for myself also, as I am currently a veterinary student, planning on specializing in ferrets. Has this ever happened to anyone else? For those of you in countries other than the USA, do you regularly spay your female ferrets, and if not, does it affect them adversely at all to go through heat cycles if they are not bred? Breeders? Vets? Please let me know. I don't usually have time to read the fml, so if you could e-mail me personally at either [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] I would appreciate it. If you could also copy it to the fml, other ferret owners would probably also benefit from the knowledge. Thank you for your help on this. Dooks and kisses to your fuzzies, Shelley Knudsen Class of 2004 KSU Veterinary College [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] http://www.tcgcs.com/~ferrets 402-463-0190 785-485-2443 [Posted in FML issue 3216]