Oo, ouch, Pam, your treading on dangerous soil there! (I'm not picking on you today, honest!). While I agree that the origin of each ferret should be included in this proposed collection of data, and I *know* you said `in [your] experience', I don't think it's fair to state that pet store ferrets have such a short lifespan compared to breeder ferrets. How many different pet stores? How many different breeders? How many different areas of the country? How many other confounding factors might there be? What's your sample? 20, 30, 50, 100? If it's getting up to 50-100 and you can show me some written data, I might start to believe you, but I have *long* believed that this stuff about MF et al. ferrets getting sick and dying younger has been a bunch of bunk. I could be *totally* wrong. And if so I'll gladly admit it. But I'd like something concrete first. I've said it before and I'll say it again: studies have shown *no* adverse effects of early spay/neuter on dogs and cats, and there is *no* prove whatsoever that the same is not true for ferrets. Again though, they are not small cats or dogs and maybe there *is* a problem with early spay/neuter. But no fair writing an opinion as if it's fact. If you can back it up with some pretty hefty numbers of ferrets from a pretty varied pool, well, cool, you may make a believer of me. But if not, let's not jump to conclusions. Just MHO, as usual :) . Laura [Posted in FML issue 1155]