From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2001-05-18 15:53:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Post surgery litter box alteration
>I just thought I'd let you know of a helpful hint for easier litter
>box access after surgery. I cut down one side of the litter box to
>about an inch, then covered the edge with a small strip of an old
>towel, just to make it more comfortable if the incision rubs the
>edge. (the cut edges were quite sharp after modification.) I just
>used a hot glue gun to keep the strip in place.
We use two types of litter boxes once they are well enough for them:
there are high-backed ones with low and smooth entries that we get
from the Ferret Store and from FAIR, and the others are from a pet
store maybe 10 miles away and they have an entry ramp.
Post-surgically you want to keep that incision and the IV entry point
clean! We don't use standard litters then. Instead, we use
Yesterday's News or ripped-up newspaper. Around here the newspapers
do not use a high clay content paper so the paper is very absorbent,
and I have been told (but have not confirmed) that the heavy-metal
color dyes are banned now. Just in case that isn't so I tend to
avoid the colored pages to be extra safe. Using a newspaper type of
litter rather than the other options seems to help a lot post-op. We
usually don't give litter boxes for the first few days to avoid any
climbing problems or rubbing.
Yes, we may err on the side of being safe, but we've never lost a
ferret post-op and I'd guess that the first operation around here on
a ferret was our Haleakala 17 or 18 years ago.
There were some fine post-op tips that Alicia wrote in a past Modern
Ferret and the Ferret Mailing List has a number of post-op tips in
its archives at http://listserv.cuny.edu/archives/ferret-search.html,
though I don't have time to search them out.
You are very right in reducing the climbing risk post-surgically.
When Seven of Six has her next surgery she'll have glue along with
the stitches since we already learned the hard way that she is
someone who rips out her own stitches. (Have had others try to
remove stitches from one post-op, but this is the first who removed
her own.)