I agree with Jeff. I have often been astonished after a ferret dies to be told by my vet after she does a necropsy, (or been told what the histology result from a lab is), how other things rather than the main cause of death are wrong with a ferret while it stayed seemingly in normal health. My vet's take is always "ferrets are tough". She says a ferret hides its illnesses more effectively than either cats or dogs, and you "never know what's going on in the inside". Even with ultrasounds and Xrays sometimes there are problems that cannot be diagnosed until the animal is opened up - and even then its not completely obvious until histology is done. I (and she) have sometimes been shocked by necropsy results that have shown much worse problems than even the bloodwork and ultrasounds have shown. It's easy to say the last thing that happened/was done to the animal is the cause of death, but there are such things as coincidences, and a dissection/necropsy (even if you can't get histology done because of the cost) will often show an animal that had problems. Ferrets truly are stoic. Some animal species show little signs of illness prior to dying - maybe a survival mechanism so the predators don't get you until you really are at death's door? I know the first thing I do when a ferret dies is blame myself for having missed something or done something. But I try to remember that they are (at least here in the US) a species with a lot of innate health issues - and that sometimes bad things happen coincidentally or just after a vet visit or treatment. But they happen at home as well - seizures, bleeding, wheezing, sudden death. Once I had a ferret (given to me by someone who was re-homing her) who ran across the floor the second day I had her and she dropped dead. She had an undiagnosed major heart problem - I think that was the first time I realized that like humans sometimes they look good on the outside and can have major problems on the inside. I've had 6 ferrets (one who is 3, one age 6, one age 8, two possibly 5yo, one maybe 4) implanted with the Deslorelin depot in the last two months and all have been fine - it is the "new" Deslorelin with the larger needle used to put the implant in. Meryl [Posted in FML 7414]