As mentioned in another post, I spent last weekend at Dayna's place, helping with her computer. On Saturday, she got a call from a gent whose daughter had gone to college over a year ago, leaving two female ferts. They had started getting sick, dad didn't want to spend cash on vets, so a local pet store gave him Dayna's number as a shelter. Dayna had to convince him to give up their "large cage" so that they wouldn't be traumatized by changing homes as well as owners, going through medical procedures, and all the other upcoming trauma soon to enter their lives...he got his wife to grudgingly agree. Sunday, Dayna went to make the pickup with me along as an observer. The girls were about 4, Marshalls, both facing adrenal problems. The more advanced case had 80% (at least) hair loss and a vagina "popping out" between 1/4 and 3/8th of an inch - and badly underweight. Her sister was a milder case, with total hair loss only on the tail (except a wispy tuft at the end) starting to spread up toward the hips, and the first hints of hair loss across the shoulderblades. We checked for other possible causes of hair loss, especially blackheads/mites on the tail of the milder case which might indicate something other than adrenal and found nothing. Both girls will be seen by a vet within the week; Dayna's vet who's inexperienced and eager to learn ferts will get the opportunity to compare an advanced case with one earlier in the cycle, pending complete diagnosises, hence this will be a bonanza for him. As we drove away, Dayna explained that this was powerfull evidence for the "environmental causes" theory of adrenal disease as supported by Dayna and Mo'Bob, among others - bad Marshall genes may have explained both sisters getting sick, but both at exactly the same time? The odds against are astronomical...consider for a moment all the possible environmental causes: TEMPERATURE: They have been in an unheated/unairconditioned garage for 1.5 years - in the desert north of LA. Plus, their blankets were inadequate thin cotton and pinned down so they couldn't "pile them up" into something adequate during the recent cold spells. BOREDOM: No toys, the "large cage" would indeed have been large - for rats...and very little human contact, at least while "Pops" had them. LIGHTING: "Pops" is a real motorhead, spending major time in the garage working on hotrods - lighting is a constant 6:00am to midnight bright flourescent setup year-round. CHEMICALS: See comment on hotrodding - he did welding, light machining, painting, god only knows what else. Probably not *extreme*, and Pops ran a very clean shop area (clean cage, too) but chemicals should be considered? POOR DIET: Their fur was like brillo pads; once "Pops" figured out they were sick, he obtained some 8n1 "real" ferret food (which isn't that good anyways); before that they were on "something from the grocery store"... And I doubt this is a complete list of all that was wrong in their little lives. Nasty, huh? I'm presenting this as general evidence, not to make the case that Marshall genetics are perfect - I'm not expert enough to make heads or tails of it all. Dayna and I photographed the girls the night we brought them to her place - and I'm absolutely certain they're in good hands now. [Posted in FML issue 1783]