From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2009-02-24 21:43:33 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: (unknown)
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
That's a lot of ferret with adrenal disease. Do you
provide a number of places where they can get into
complete or nearly complete darkness whenever they
want?
We've had ferrets for something like 27 or 28 years
and tend to run into about 30% of the ferrets getting
adrenal disease, and less than 20% getting any of the
forms of pancreatic disease (including insulinoma but
not limited to that).
The only things we do that are different than many
people is we provide a lot of places where they can
get away into darkness whenever they choose, and
we have them out for many, many hours (though
they are caged when we sleep or are away for long
periods). We feed kibble.
Melatonin plays a role in both adrenal health and
pancreatic health as well as in tumor destruction,
and the pineal gland produces its own in response
to darkness. There is some melatonin research in
ferrets and a huge amount in multiple other mammals.
Exercise tends to bring some hormones into levels
that tend to be safer in terms of hormal malignancy
rates. That work is in a range of mammals other than
ferrets.
The person I know who gets the best rates for those
two illnesses has worked things up so that his ferrets
are especially active. He feeds a mix of different food
types. He also tends to get the most consistently long
lifespans -- for ferrets that are NOT from carefully
controlled old stock that had no fancies mixed in --
of anyone I have corresponded with in the quarter
century + (27 years) that I've had internet access and
communicated with such people.
Even in talking with very long time (3 decades or so)
British and Scandinavian ferret people I kept hearing
that the old timers often told them to
1. provide a lot of darkness or the ferrets would get sick
2. provide a lot of exercise for the same reason.
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
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