From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2012-02-14 16:44:37 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Re: Insulinoma Question
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Yes, but, Kim, you have had ferrets in your family for only about five and half years, total, from your own words:
<http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/SCRIPTS/WA-FERRET.EXE?A2=ind0706&L=FERRET-SEARCH&P=R16102&I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches>
So, that means that many of these were adult adoptees. Adult adoptees tend to have estimated ages, and our experience, which is like that of many others, is that adult adoptees tend to thrive in any home with enough attention and play. There are a great many ways to provide that and many of them have nothing to do with diet.
Plus, 8 years is in the normal range we have personally found for life spans in our 30+ years with ferrets in our family. It's not in the higher than normal ranges we have seen, nor in the lower than normal ranges we have seen personally. The usual lifespans we have encountered here, with kibble and some cooked homemade foods, have been late (like 3/4s of the way through or more) in the 6th year to middle 8th year, but we have had older ones. We also have had some younger ones, one with DIM/myofaciitis, one with juvenile lymphoma, a few who wound up in two lymphoma clumps we have had (There is one form of lymphoma which appears to be triggered by a virus about 3 years before the lymphoma clump appears and that form can be read about in the separate FHL archives.). Steve and I also for a while when we could spare the time and money took in ones with bad deformations and some of them actually got the normal life spans our ferrets tend to reach of over 6 and 3/4 years, but not all did. We can't do that any longer in terms of time or money but we a series of such individuals in our family. Giving an idea of why we can't take in badly deformed ferrets any longer: one of the males in that category cost $10,500 in medical care through his lifespan of 6 years (another one with deformations who made it to just shy of 7 years -- almost reached his birthday -- probably cost more but we did not keep track of his expenses and our vet refers to the care he needed during his first year as his "hardest save"); the worst one in terms of types and degrees of deformation, a female, required as much daily care on our part as any three ferrets when she was doing reasonably okay for her, but she made it to 6 years of age. Both of those who died at age 6 years are shorter lifespans than we like to see, but better than had been expected for either of those individuals.
Our ferrets are happy, healthy, and usually have decently long lives as you can see above, even some of the ones who had begun life with many strikes . Having kibble did not change that.
Nor have we had many with insulinoma. There have been more than we would like: under 20% the last time I ran the numbers so I typically rounded up to 20%, and that includes the ones who began life with serious deformations and the adoptees as well as the ones who grew up with us from kithood (We do not breed.), but I have not run the numbers in recent years.
On Feb 14, 2012, at 4:22 AM, Kim wrote:
>
> The short answer to your question Debi is: My youngest converted natural feeder passed at 1 from a blockage, the oldest converted natural feeder passed at 7. My oldest converted natural feeder is still bouncing at 8. Currently my bouncing business is 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, 5, 4 and 2.
>
> This is my rehoming/rescue history so far:
>
>
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html
"All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow."
(2010, Steve Crandall)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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