The largest breeders minimize inbreeding by keeping track of groups and which groups can be mated to which others is controlled and cycled. Some are said to have also imported some European sperm. For adrenal disease early neutering is not the full picture. Whole ferrets also get adrenal disease, even sometimes early adrenal disease, and there needs to be a study to compare rates though the rates certainly seem to be lower for whole ferrets. It also appears like giving melatonin, or giving low levels of Lupron in the Spring, or providing complete darkness might reduce the onset levels and increase the age of on-set for adrenal disease. There is a lot in the archives on this topic. the "JM from FHL" posts on the topic are especially good, or instead go to the FHL archives and search using AFERRETVET in the "from" box. Years ago adrenal disease was much more rarely diagnosed, even with early alters. Why? No one knows. We aren't the only ones from then who have mentioned this by a long shot. I'm sure that part of it was just that it was spotted less but it is much more complicated than that. Early onsets began to happen in large numbers separately and years after adrenal growths began to be reported more. I am personally inclined to wonder how much the concurrent great increase in some types of fancy genetics influenced this change. Sherman, to whom I refer in a different post, is our second ferret with an adrenal growth before the age of 5. He is 3 and 1/2. That is in almost 22 years with ferrets. Not bad, huh? What do we have? Late alters? Nope. Special breeding? Nope. Tons of raw or special food? Nope, just high quality prepared foods. Only about 1/3 of our ferrets wind up with adrenal growths or insulinoma, or both, AND most of those are after the age of 5 years and most have only one adrenal involved when the problem is adrenal growths. Also not at all bad data grouping. Most here live into late their 7th year to mid 8th which is not spectacular at all but is still a very reasonable mean age bracket for age of death (though we have lost some earlier to JL, the current mystery disease, a bird-borne disease (over 20 years ago), carcinoma, and mostly 2 lymphoma clumps we had), and we alternatively have lost some at older ages. The life spans we see are very typical for ferrets in the U.S. over the last decade or so, and our's have been from a wide range of breeding sources, esp. farms -- with most through the years being adopted as kits due to their existing serious problems. Personally, I really suspect that our providing a lot of good exercise, preventing obesity when possible, and providing at least 14 hours a day of complete darkness (which actually is a very old British ferreting procedure) make a huge difference (because in complete darkness the body produces a lot of melatonin). In the wild polecats rarely live to any appreciable ages, and most of the disease ferrets get are actually old age illnesses. It's like with us humans: after 35 for us it is all maintenance (with the amount of maintenance increasing over the years). Ask anyone with dental caps, glasses, anyone a diet, anyone with a home gym, anyone with a mammogram or PSA scheduled, etc. It needs to be remembered that not all of the large farms are against returning to later sales ages. Long ago, back before there were many of the current farms, the usual shipping or sales age was 8 weeks. Then there began to be some farms which reduced the ages they sent to 5 or 6 weeks of age, and those forced the older farms to copy them because the pet stores insisted that they would only buy young kits. Very often the WRONG farms wind up getting the blame because people know their names already. The reality too often is that the older farms have been placed into a spot between a rock and a hard place. It would probably surprise many here to know that I've heard several times from a top executive in what might be the most often disparaged farm that actually they would welcome a return to an 8 week mandated minimum sales and transport age. They simply think it is healthier and dislike being forced by the market into the spot of having to sell younger ones to stores. You'll have noticed that there is a LOT less opposition to legislative efforts to increase the age of ferrets at sales and transport than folks worried there would be, and that this pattern has been repeated in state after state. That is quite simply because there are those in the ferret farm industry who welcome an 8 week minimum age as a requirement instead of disliking the idea. They can afford that and know they can because they used to do it, they know it is healthier and therefore less likely to result in unhappy customers, and they hate being forced by pet sales industry demands to send younger animals -- so regulated ages of no younger than 8 weeks are actually good for them, too. Otherwise, because of the demands of pet stores they are stuck in the spot of not being able to sell their animals if they insist on later shipping ages, so improved laws and regulations help them help ferrets and consumers. If you "want" to hear something horrifying, some of the newer and smaller farms are again upping the stakes by having forced weaning to take ages lower. This has a number of people in the larger and older farms appalled because it simply is NOT healthy and NOT fair to the ferret or to the consumer in terms of behavioral adjustments as well as health concerns. Obviously, there is a GREAT need for rules which prevent selling and shipping ferrets at young ages: laws such as those which have passed or are being considered in: NH, Maine, Michigan, and Maryland, and this need is only being made larger by the push by some smaller farms to use forced weaning to further lower ages. [Posted in FML issue 4455]