You will find pretty much any ferret melatonin question you may have answered by combining these resources: http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/melatonin.htm and then http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org if you or your vet have questions remaining When possible I have also brought the vet posts over to the FML Archives (The FML Archive address is always in the header of every day's FML, and that is always a good place to start. Life's demands haven't always allowed me time to bring over vets' posts, though. You know how it is for all of us here, we all have other loves and demands in our lives so we do what we can when the situation warrants, or when the request is a polite and kind and gentle one, or when we also need the answers, or... ) Read also about complete darkness, Lupron, surgery, etc.. Melatonin is not a cure but it might slow disease progression and it seems to have possible use as a preventative. As a preventative or as a treatment for one who is not a surgical candidate it is best used in conjunction with Lupron which can also be read about in detail at those two sites, as can meds for some of the more serious secondary results of adrenal disease such as anemia or prostate enlargement. It will help correct some of the effects of adrenal disease like fur loss. As you know, very few ferrets should die of adrenal disease these days because there are so many excellent approaches to remove the adrenal(s) -- and prevent Addisons episodes when both come out completely or too little tissue remains behind to provide the needed adrenal products, to slow the disease when surgery isn't possible or only debulking can be done, to hopefully delay the age of onset, and because most such growths are not malignant (but still can have life-threatening effects if they remain in and untreated) and when they are malignant metastasis is rare as long as surgery is not delayed, etc. Todd, the new Tuft's protocol may be of interest to you. Chances are still slim, I am afraid, even combining his being in the prime of life and the promise of this new (non-IV) chemo approach which is more gentle on them. I privately sent you some info from the archives and a contact addy for your vet. (Others can find the info using the FML and FHL Archives but I quoted in full for Todd...) Sorry about the mistake on my first sending. With just Prednisolone and pain meds we've managed to give elderly ones in our family with lymphosarcoma between 6 to 14 good months. Sorry you are going through that. If you didn't get two mails from me when you see this post write to me. Chris wrote: >A little word of warning here. Being declared TB free and not having >any TB in the country is not the same thing. The UK has a BT free >status but we have outbreaks of BT in cattle every year. Exactly. There are enough wild reservoirs (and enough that gets accidently exchanged in things like sperm shipments according to one source I read) that except for a few isolated islands in the Pacific there is always some bTB around. It's way, way better than 85 years ago when bTB was common, but the disease breaks out pretty much anywhere. One of the sources I read yesterday was on an epidemic of it among northern Alp red deer, and I was surprised to find out that a number of marsupials can get it. In the U.S. for a state to be declared "free" of bTB it needs to have found no more than one herd have any number of animals with bTB within 4 years. The states here go back and forth between that status and upgrades as break-outs occur. In some places there have been hiatuses where testing didn't occur only to find an increase and that they should have been following up each year. This is a rare but fatal disease for ferrets (or cats or dogs or humans) to get (usually from raw milk or raw meat from an infected animal). There's a lot to be said for the very, very, very many lives of many species saved from a wide range or illnesses by pasteurization of milk (and not just cow milk). The basic statements about ferret diets in general are that there are multiple decent approaches, but each does carry its own risk factors just as it carries its own benefits, and that a huge percentage of the claims made are based more on hypotheses than on any good hard numbers or answered gaps in knowledge. That doesn't mean that they are wrong or right. In this there simply is not yet a true general wrong or right as long as the diet is a decent one that avoids the well documented health pitfalls and it takes the needs of the individual into consideration when that is a factor. So, avoid the guilt train if you give a good diet (kibbled or not, cooked or not, 35% protein from animal sources or much higher, and without those chunks of dried fruit or veggies that can cause blockages) because the best guesses by the experts vary -- and on top of that can change according to an individual ferrtet's own health needs -- and despite claims none of us will know for sure what really will turn out to be optimal until many large knowledge gaps are filled and those are likely going to take a good many years to fill at the current rate. So, avoid needless feelings of guilt but try work with your health professionals to adjust diets for individuals as needed, and if you do choose to feed any given diet know at least a bit about the possible risk factors as well as possible benefits involved, and don't treat it as if it is an infallible religion (and personally I figure all of those are fallible, too, but that is just me) to preach about or to have to accept as a matter of faith, but instead keep your ear to the ground so that you can adjust as needed for things like individual needs, and current disease rates and types in your food source if you feed raw. (Ultimately, I think that we'll find that diets will be chosen for individual needs with basic foods and then some added special ones, or special supplements, or special preventative meds adjusted for different individuals' personal vulnerabilities but that is likely to be enough decades away that I'll be moving to dust then.) Learn and adjust diets as you learn from the ever changing pool of information but don't beat yourself up if you feed a different diet than someone who comes on too strongly for you; let the guilt train leave the station empty. [Posted in FML issue 4781]