Russ pointed out the excellent question of whether the abstract gives the percent of lost kits or total kits. Excellent question. I don't know. Does anyone here have access to J Zoo Wildl Med. 2007 Jun;38(2):169-76 to take a look? If not, the author can be contacted since like with many studies there is handy contact info. Although I worded it badly my supposition was that the percentage given meant that it was over half of the kits who were lost were lost to gastrointestinal diseases until changes were made, rather than over half of all kits born. Russ's astute observation makes it obvious that assumptions wind up causing people to miss things. The reason I suspected that was because the number of kits seemed lower than what I'd expect for half given what I think aI recall reading in press releases of birth numbers in the past. On the other hand, though, I do not know what the size of the breeding population at that specific facility was in those years. Still, that was a high number from such diseases so I am glad that has been changed. Deaths from avoidable disease are especially tragic. Sukie (not a vet) Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html [Posted in FML 5696]