I guess I'll chime in on this one! I bought my first ferret in 1977, at the pet store where I worked. She was not spayed/ decented and came from 'Colorado Ferrets' (confirmed by Bob Church, he told me they were one of the first pet store breeders. Others also came from area 'back yard' breeders. She died at two of Aplastic anemia. Spayed too late. I did try breeding her a few times. Which brought her out of season. Louise and seven ferrets after that were fed Meow Mix/ Kitten Chow. I do believe I fed Iams kitten chow when it first came out , too. I still have those 20+ year old books that told you to hold them with gloves and feed them bread and milk...really!! They were kept in a 55 gallon fish tank with cedar chips and cardboard boxes for a house. A big glass puppy water bottle for water. No litter box. They did have run of my parents house quite alot also. Sounds awful now....compared to my kids presently, who have their own free roam room, plus run of the house. All had to be spayed, and my Vet didn't decent them. I highly doubt they had any shots at all. MAYBE once, plus a rabies one time. This is a list of my first group, at my parents house. (had 12 at my BF's house, all gone now, and currently have 5, picking up #6 at the Buckeye Bash!) Louise-'77-80-Aplastic Anemia/ black roan mitt, as they are called now Rigby-'80-81-accident/ sable Sadie-'80-91-old age, plus insulinoma...had the 'screaming'kind/sable Samantha-'80-? my Siberian got ahold of her. :( /silver/ roan Sally-'83-'87-tumor in her abdomen/ silver/roan Ceclia-'83-? got outside, killed by a dog/ sable Gizmo-'84-94-Adrenal, as we call it now, the Vet then called it a 'hormone' problem. Was never treated for it. Put to sleep at 10 years old...mostly 'naked' :(/ sable Sushi- ?-?- '80's-came from our local Zoo. Had a huge tumor on her side./ Light chocolate Guess my point to writing this is...it looks like those 'problems' showed up back then too! P.S. to Sukie...who was that breeder who had the orange ferrets? Wasn't she from MI??? Joan and the 5 Fuzzies [Posted in FML 5708]