From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2003-04-15 18:01:10 UTC
Subject: Re: lifespans
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-Id: <a05210604bac1f55bcb33@[10.0.1.34]>
Years ago I followed up on a lot of these reports and the oldest
verifiable age I found was 14 years. There were a number of people
who would say that they had or knew of ferrets who were older then
find that they were a lot younger on checking records, one who
combined two ferrets accidentally in a report (but had the honesty to
send an "Opps, sorry" message later), a number of people who found
out that someone was pulling their legs, and a lot of estimated ages.
(One thing I have learned from estimated ages is that some people
tend to estimate high and some tend to estimate low. We are in the
latter category but I sure know of a lot who turned out to be in the
first category, probably more than those who estimate low.)
Anyway, the highest verifiable (by vet records in that case) age I
could find was 14, and if my recollection was right that one was in
Britain though I am not at all certain of my memory on that point. I
have heard the same age elsewhere so I guess someone also found that
one or knew of another of that age.
At the time I was trying to find long lived lines. For the most part
the very long lived individuals turned out NOT to be known to have
come from unusually long lived lines; they simply had things going
right for them as individuals. The sources were all over the board:
farms, private breeders, etc. At that time (and it was quite some
time ago) I found three (if memory serves) reports of unusually long
lived lines. One was from a reputable source (a vet) but that was
long before and the line had been allowed to die out as its people
aged, one turned out to be a fake and we wound up losing about $400
on a false promise of a kit, and one i can't recall the details on
but obviously for one reason or another it didn't pan out for having
a kit from the line. In more recent years there is someone on a
different list whose name I forget who said that she is following a
line of marked whites who had two long lived members but I have heard
nothing since on any lists so maybe it didn't hold in the long run
which would be sad. In that case the lives were not shockingly long
but they were certainly marvelous since they were 10 and 11 and going
strong enough for old ones at the time of the report.