Suki wrote: >In addition, necropsies with pathology (and sometimes toxicology) should >ALWAYS be done when an unexpected death occurs in case there is anything >going on which may endanger the rest so that it can be caught early and >have targeted treatment. > >Necopsies save lives; sounds weird but they do. I suspect a lot of shelters do not have pathology & toxicology done because of the high costs of some of these diagnostics. As a way for our veterinarians to learn, in order to help future ferrets, we have always had postmortems done and paid for whatever tests the vet wants to do. Five years ago, we found that our local lab offers a considerable discount to non-profit organizations (we pay much less than veterinarians do for the same tests.) So we opened an account with the lab and they bill us directly. (It is common practice for veterinarians to mark up the lab work when charging their clients, so all veterinarians may not be willing to offer this service to their clients.) Our veterinarians like the fact that we will send whatever they want to the lab for diagnosis and so (kindly) do not add on a fee to prepare lab samples. 501(C)(3) shelters may want to contact the lab used by their veterinarian to first see if they offer a similar discount to non-profit orgs in your area and if so, then approach your veterinarians to see if they're willing to work with you on this. I don't believe we have ever had an unknown cause of death. That's because the lab work can ID the cause of problems in organs, that frequently look healthy on visual exam. Sandi Best Little Rabbit, Rodent & Ferret House a non-profit animal shelter 14325 Lake City Way NE Seattle, WA 98125 (206)365-9105 Open 7 days/week or visit our on-line store at: http://www.rabbitrodentferret.org [Posted in FML issue 3887]