From:
Mike Janke
Date: 2001-04-06 18:33:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Is he dying?
Laura,
A temperature of 103 is a normal temperature for a ferret, so he does
not have a fever at that temp.
And I know this may sound crazy, but is the vet absolutely sure it's
his liver that is enlarged and not his spleen? I ask this because my
first ferret, Sidney, was diagnosed as having an enlarged liver which
was pointed out to me on an x-ray, and when we got our third opinion
with a vet that knew something about ferrets (this was in the
1980's), it was really his spleen that was enlarged. In defense of
the first vet, he did tell us he knew nothing about ferrets, but
during the 80's, it was difficult to find one who did.
An enlarged spleen can occur for a number of reasons, but practically
any smoldering illness can result in this problem. One needs to
concentrate on finding out what is really wrong, and once that is
under control, the spleen will most likely return to a more normal
size.
Digested blood in his stool sounds like gastric ulcers are a definite
possibility. The Gerber's chicken is excellent for this as a bland
diet is essential. Does he grind his teeth when eating? Your vet
can give you carafate to give him about 10 minutes before eating to
help ease the pain and make him more willing to eat the baby food.
I can imagine that he's very weak if he's not eating, so it's
essential that you get nourishment and liquids into him. The baby
food has quite a bit of water in it, so you might see somewhat less
water intake when feeding that. Work hard on the supportive care
while waiting for a definite diagnosis. Make sure he's eating and if
not, feed him regularly yourself.
I'm sure one or more of the vets here will have some opinions for
you, but more information, like the results of bloodwork, would
certainly be helpful for them to give you a good answer.
Mike
--- In Ferret-Health-list@y..., raku72@h... wrote:
> Someone please help us. My 1.5 yr old albino male 2 weeks ago got
> very sick. He lays like a wet dishrag has not eaten or drank on
his
> own and is very weak. A week ago Wednesday we rushed him to the
> vet. He had a fever of 103, an enlarged liver but noting else
seemed
> wrong.