This is part of my response (edited) to a question about whether any animal is worth spending $1000. (I was a little "snippy" towards the end!)

Let's try it again everyone! Ferrets are expensive pets to own. Here is yet ANOTHER review of one of mine's medical history. Remember I live in an expensive area and surgeries here can run around $1500 each time by the time tests and everything else are done (I know... you folks out in Iowa can get it for $300 or less! ;) )

1. 1 years old: Earplug was chewed. Observed for 3-4 days, stools normal, all else seemed normal. 1 month later, found her in odd sleeping positions throughout the room every 5 minutes or so. Careful observation revealed she was not sleeping, but passing out. Raced to the vet. Overnight stay, fluids, laxatives etc. and right before surgery, part of an earplug passed out of her system. Sent home with antibiotics. Meanwhile I rid my life of every earplug and did a thorough "move furniture, empty all closets, dump out all drawers, change the sheets..." cleaning to be SURE nothing else like this happened again. Probably about $200+ for the emergency visit and the stay. One month later, vomiting. Gave hairball meds. 5 minutes later, hairball medication was vomited. Back to vet. Surgery this time. Another piece of the same earplug -from 2 months earlier! Partial obstructions can float around for a while. Easily another $1500 there.
   
   
2. 3 years old: Wasn't feeling well in general. Intermittent. Vet was out of town. Saw somebody else at the same clinic who said all was well and it was just stress. (Roughly $80 for this info). FOUR MONTHS LATER I was finally convinced that this MUST be more than stress. Saw MY vet this time. Partial obstruction again. No idea where from. It turned out to be one of those round flat rubber disks from the bottom of electronic equipment so it won't scratch the furniture? I looked under every electronic thing I owned (as I was ripping remaining rubber feet off of EVERYTHING and disposing of them!) and none were missing. We had been out in the past 5 months but she was always supervised. Easily another $1500 and a lifetime of guilt for letting it go for so long.
   
   
3. 3 years old(?): Severe vaccine reaction. All-day stay in ICU. Home later that night only to return to the emergency room at 4 am with a relapse. Another day admit and sent home later with stronger drugs. - I don't even recall the price of this one.
   
   
4. 4 1/2 years old: Chordoma removed (benign tumor on the tip of the tail, about the size of a chick pea, that can split and become infected if not removed). Probably another $1500 by the time we were through. Slow healing and required more visits.
   
   
5. 5 years old: Cagemate died from very aggressive cancer and in spite of tons of extra attention, Helicobacter set in with the remaining ferret. 6 weeks of forced feeding, three or more times a day, and 2+ months of meds. Liver complications after this and the onset of adrenal symptoms. 1 year of various phone consults with a homeopathic vet to try to get her system strong enough for adrenal surgery. Roughly $50 a call and $15 per med. Possibly around $800+ total for the telephone vet and another $300 or so for local vet visits plus about $600 in x-rays that I kept insisting on having done for her lingering Helicobacter discomfort because of her "foreign body" history. All x-rays were normal.
   
   
6. 6 years old: Adrenal surgery. Left removed and 3/4 of right removed. Another $2000 or so.
   
   
7. 6 years 8 months: Tumor on spleen pressing against stomach. Kidneys low functioning. Surgery done again. Removed tumor, spleen, & two insulinomas. Recovery successful. $2000.
   
   
8. Continuous trouble with Helicobacter/IBD? related symptoms (yes we tried practically everything). Daily Sub-Q Fluids twice a day at home forever. (approximately $30-$50 a month) plus vet visits approximately every 2 to 3 months with tests (sometimes an x-ray or an ultrasound) to monitor.

Whitney, in spite of all of this, is doing quite well. Oh, and she's also gone blind and has the occasional mast cell tumor. But this is not a pathetic dying ferret clinging to life here. She's mobile and curious and really doing well. Do you know how many times other people wrote her off? It's been almost one year since her last surgery. She does great on the daily fluids. But hey, it's only added an additional year of a quality life for my best friend. Maybe I should have given up when she was 3 or 4 or 5? Or even the last time at 6+?

People ask me how much a ferret costs? I ask them "which one?" This one costs about $1,000 a year. My other one costs about $200 a year. Any ferret I get has the potential to be another $1000 a year ferret.

All of Whitney's illnesses are quite common in ferrets. If you're lucky, you only get one or two of these, but there's nothing to say you can't get them all. (Yes I know we're missing a couple of common ones. Let's keep it that way!)

I'm really thankful and grateful that Whitney has been with me her whole life and not with someone who would have wondered if she was worth 1k. There's absolutely no way that she would be alive 8 1/2 years later if she had. Money is tight for people. I understand that. But this was a question about whether any animal's life is "worth it."

If you do your research BEFORE you get a ferret, you'll know how expensive they can be. If you didn't, then it won't take you too long to figure that out from reading the posts on this board. Start saving up! Work it out. Make plans for how you'll be paying for these things now, before you get a ferret. You've got MORE than a 50% chance of your ferret developing adrenal tumors or Insulinoma by 5 years old and that's only two of the things it could get.

If your ferret isn't worth 1k to you, get a fish. Medications for them are much cheaper. Oh, but they probably wouldn't be worth that $5 or so medication either. I mean it's so much trouble to go through. Work at a nature center. Donate your time to a shelter -of any kind. Be around animals if you like them. But don't OWN a pet if you can't value its life. Check out the medical FAQs at http://www.ferretcentral.org for more information on adrenal tumors and insulinoma. May as well also look into Helicobacter and ECE while you're at it.