I think that it is important here to remember that dilated hearts are from cardiomyopathy that has been present enough to cause that muscular effect over time, and that the symptoms at death are consistent with a cardiovascular cause, and also that right now the cause is not firmly established so it is way too early to draw conclusions based on temporal factors. Plus, in the same time frame you lost one from rampant pneumonia, and that while rampant pneumonia would show up in a plain old necropsy, a lesser infection that could be too much combined with heart disease would not. Remember that the word on necropsies is that the vast majority of the causes of death in mammals that are not obvious with a necropsy need timely pathology done to find out what actually truly occurred. There is a figure -- I think in the Ferret Mailing List Archives <http://listserv.cuny.edu/archives/ferret-search.html> but perhaps in the Ferret Health List Archives -- on that. There are a huge number of things that just can not be told without pathology done. Without pathology all that exists is a monetary settlement unless there are other such cases in which the pathology has been done (I have not heard of any) and monetary settlements can happen for a range of reasons. There IS a known case of a very small sized female who appeared to possibly have trouble with the melatonin implant dose, but that is not firmly known as the cause, especially since larger doses per weight had been seen in other ferrets. She was part of a study and she became very (very) lethargic for an extended period, then rebounded. The cause remains unknown, but it is possible that she was particularly sensitive to the tiring effects of melatonin due to some individual factor, or her size, or both. What has happened on the pathology front? Did the preps to get that done happen rapidly enough? The window is a short one. Remember that if the tissue isn't in formalin within 48 hours then nothing at all can be learned from it, and with some aspects of the digestive system like the gall bladder and intestine that needs to be done by the vet within hours of death. See: http://ferrethealth.org/archive/browse.php?msg=YG10682 http://ferrethealth.org/archive/browse.php?msg=YG647 etc. How large was this ferret? It is possible that the stress of the large bore may have been factor given the signs of preexisting heart disease discussed on the FHL, especially is combined with the limitations of a lung infection that simply wasn't overt enough to be spotted on a simple necropsy, though the latter two together could have been enough, or *maybe* a ferret who is already dealing with either or both of those problems is not a good candidate for something that can further deepen sleep. (Note that is a *maybe*.) Remember that she had already been on oral melatonin, and that the body itself produces melatonin in response to darkness. (Melatonin serves MANY functions in the body.) The only way to KNOW what happened here would be through timely pathology before tissue degradation. The enlarged heart alone says that this was already a compromised ferret with cardiomyopathy. -- Sukie (not a vet) Ferret Health List co-moderator http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth FHL Archives fan http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ replacing http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org International Ferret Congress advisor http://www.ferretcongress.org [Posted in FML issue 5033]