>But they lived 9, 10, 11 years! Yes, our experience in almost 30 years with ferrets has been that the ones back before there were a lot of fancies very often were healthier, aged later, and lived longer. Unlike you we did not run into insulinoma with the early ones. The only early ferret we had who developed a pancreatic disease had lymphoma based there, not insulinoma, and we didn't run into adrenal disease until one who came into our family about 25 years ago as a kit later turned 7 or 8 years old and then that also was lymphoma but this time in an adrenal. We did have more ferrets than those two with lymphoma back then, though. Having many ferrets back then be stronger seems to be a common experience, though we ran into the opposite, too. One of our early ferrets who turned out to be from fur fitch stock had congenital liver problems, and we knew of someone who had 80 ferrets back then who lived and inbred willy-nilly in her household and I recall her once telling me over the phone that her ferrets lived to be about 2 years old -- and she actually thought that was acceptable. Arrgghhh! 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/ http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html all ferret topics: http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html HAPPY: http://www.6footsix.com/my_weblog/2010/01/high-fives-for-happiness.html "All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow." (2010, Steve Crandall) [Posted in FML 6590]