From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2004-12-02 20:20:19 UTC
Subject: RE: [ferrethealth] shots
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <5870637.1102018819285.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
Most of the ferrets who reach extreme old age who I've heard about and the one we had (Most of our pass in their 7th or 8th years.) have been unusual ferrets who just seemed to have gotten lucky in the genetic pool.
I have heard of some exceptions, though. I know two people who are very prone to having long lived ones. The friend whose ferrets often reach 10 and i have gone over what is done repeatedly, and the only thing we could come up with that was consistent among his long lived ones was that he ia able to provide a lot more room and access for vigorous exercise whenever the ferrets want it than our own economic situation allows. His have been from a range of sources, some ate frozen mice but some didn't, etc. Exercise was what we could find. (In humans studies, too, exercise plays a part in everything from improved quality of life to reduced GI problems, to reduced cardiovascular problems, to reduced rates of a number of hormonal related malignancies, etc. with more exercise).
BTW, we have noticed that the couch potato ferrets we have (who often are the most prone to excess fat) tend to often die younger, but note that some become couch potatoes due to underlying health problems from early abuse, health problems, or serious deformities before coming here, so it works in both directions.
My suspicion, too, is that there will be differences among spotting things fast enough to correct them among households and among vets. I know personally that when we have a lot of stressful things going on in life such a very ill older human family members that our ability to spot things going wrong in ourselves or in our ferrets goes down, and I know that impacts overall health and probability of survival. Plus, vets and clinics just plain do differ (There is a fine article on that among human health providers in the current New Yorker.).
Then again, there will be some who just have the right genetics. I know that I personally heard of and encountered a lot more of the 7, 8, and 9 year old ones (and older) in our decade with ferrets before there were so many with the fancy pelages such as the ones showing neural crest genetic variants like blaze and panda heads, and one of the leading contenders for those, especially when there is also bodily white spotting that isn't explained by other cause is the Kit oncogene which does increase the susceptibility to malignancies in other mammals, but hasn't yet been studied for that in ferrets. We did see fewer cases personally and hear of fewer cases of many malignancies before those markings began being so common due to selective breeding for them. There have also been proposals to check for the prevalence of MEN (multiple endocrinological neoplasia) genetics in ferrets.