Pat: Ah yes, you have touched on the one major negative to ferret medicine that almost every ferret vet I know hates. Every time Dr. Susan Brown gives a lecture she talks about how tired she is of telling people their loved one has cancer and there's only so much she can do. There are some theories -- inbreeding caused by major breeders like Marshall Farms, early spay/neuter, probably others not in my head at the moment. But no one knows for sure. We do know Europe has far less of this problem. One vet I talked to suspects that keeping them outdoors (inside to play with family of course) helps immensely -- she has a very small sample -- but she says since she's started keeping hers outside she's had no cancer. But we're talking only a few ferrets here and it may be total coincidence. The problem with official research is money. Dr. Williams I'm sure can speak to that far more than I. But research on ferrets for clinical medicine problems is tough -- the money goes into dogs and cats because there are so many more of them. The rabies study goes on I'm sure only because ferrets *are* climbing in numbers and it's a public health issue. Although many vets will be trying to figure it out from the cases that come through their clinics, I've no idea how long it will take via that method to figure out where this might all be coming from, or even if we can figure it out without official research. Anybody know any very old multi-millionaire ferret lovers? Laura L'Heureux [Posted in FML issue 1150]