I am a relatively new ferret owner and have one 5 month old sable female ferret. She is such a delight and I can now appreciate all you other "nutty" ferret owners passion. (I dont mean that awfully but everyone here seems to think Im nutty, so I guess Im proud of it). Her name is Jaala and was 2.9pounds at the age of 3 1/2 months, and is in no way obese or even plump. I think she has finished most of her growing but it drew my attention that she appeared to be different to a lot of American ferrets and it appears this line of New Zealand ferrets is generally larger than most domestic American ferrets. I have done lots of "asking around" (not very scientific, I know) to breeders and fellow ferret owners and it appears that none!!! of them have experienced adrenal diseases and the life expectancy seems to be 8 - 12 years of age. This, and the fact that we have feral ferrets (similar size to my one), has led me to wonder if we have a hardier (I dare not say superior) line of ferrets here. I wonder if: * our more natural country lifestyle * a climate which allows us to keep them outside * genetic influence from feral ferrets (survival of the fittest) * general "harder" attitudes which includes breeding from only healthy animals with good genetic background has led to a line of ferrets which are less likely to develop adrenal diseases and perhaps other diseases which in turn may lengthen the life span of a ferret. It breaks my heart to hear about the thousands of ferrets which develop adrenal diseases in America and cant help but wonder if a new focus upon introducing new bloodlines/genes to the breedng programmes of domestic ferrets could help decrease the prevalence of these such diseases. As an aside about domestic ferrets hunting rabbits. Jaala (who I brought at 6 weeks desexed and descented eek!! from a breeder exporting domestic ferrets) was fed the occasional bit of fresh rabbit carcuss. She had been submissive around 8 different cats, 4 different dogs, horses, pet rats, chinchillas and every thing else she had ever met but when she met a rabbit in a cage she lunged at the cage like she thought she fancied a meal of rabbit which was at least 4 times her size!! I wonder if she would survive in the wild after all? As another aside, how do they physically desex a 6 week old female ferret, I was surprised to see no scar from any surgery but feel confident the proceedure did take place. Is it done internally? Maree Clapham and Jaala [Posted in FML issue 2212]