Dr Judi Bell gave a lecture at our club meeting this past week, and I thought it was outstanding! She mentioned a couple of things I found very interesting that I would like to share with all of you. Adrenal disease - Judi agrees that there is a high rate of adrenal disease in ferrets; her theory is that it may be due to life-style rather than diet. "In the wild" animals are on a natural day/night cycle. Pet ferrets are at the mercy of our schedule - we tend to keep them under unnatural lights which extends our day but may not be healthy for our ferrets. She said they need that "dark" time. Judi has had many ferrets in her life, she has about 10 ferrets now, and has never had a ferret with adrenal disease - most if not all of her ferrets have been Marshall Farm ferrets. She has a ferret room for her crew and when it gets dark out, she shuts the light in the ferret room and closes the door. Now, I know a lot has been mentioned about England and Australia, their low incidence of cancer/adrenal disease, and feeding whole, raw carcases to ferrets. But aren't many of these ferrets housed outside as well? And wouldn't that mean that they are on a natural light cycle and not exposed as much to the unnatural lights? How 'bout it you guys? Are you keeping your ferrets under natural lighting or unnatural lighting? Food: Judi rated Totally Ferret as the number 1 choice! She felt that while the Marshall's food was a good food for pregnant jills and growing kits, it might be just a little too rich for the average pet ferret. (I am not suggesting - and neither did she - that MF Food is bad - since most of us blend several foods together, if your ferrets like MF Food, don't worry about it - besides, she rated it number 2). Of course, grocery store foods did not do well on her list of choices. BTW, Iams and Science Diet were #3 and 4. Vaccines: TO PAM GRANT: Pam, you may have been correct when you told me that Distamink is not the same as FerVac-D - at least not any more. Prior to changing the diluent in FerVac, they were the same vaccine, but not since. Marshall Farms uses Distamink on all their ferrets, and Judi says it's ok to use that on pet ferrets as well. Judi still maintains that when using Galaxy on a ferret who has NEVER been vaccinated with ANYTHING before, there is a potential risk for that ferret to develop distemper. Her love of ferrets was so apparent throughout the evening - she has a 3-legged ferret named "Tripod" that she had pictures of as well as many of her other ferrets. And she found it hard to stay away from our shelter ferrets! I wish you all could have been there! Debbie Riccio WNYFLFA Rochester, NY [Posted in FML issue 1559]