From:
Amy & Dave Seyler
Date: 2001-07-16 10:33:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Jaw problem
I'm not sure what to tell you regarding your ferret not being
able to open his jaw, but I can tell you that I also had a
ferret who could not open his jaw fully.
Sidney never was able to open his jaw all the way. We know
because we got him at 8 weeks old. I can give you some advice
about how to handle this problem, but really, we never even
mentioned it to the vet because we figured he was either a)
genetically formed that way or b) fell or hurt his jaw when he
was very young and it caused the deformity.
Sidney also put his nose in the air to eat. We had to buy the
smallest ferret food pieces we could that were not pellets. We
also had to watch what kind of treats he got -- he always
loved Pounce tartar control but they frequently got stuck in
the roof of his mouth so we always had to break them in half.
The other thing you need to watch out for is his teeth --
because he can't open his mouth all the way to get food down,
you may find that he retains some food between gum and "lip".
You'll probably have to get his teeth scaled more frequently,
and definitely professionally.
It was live and learn with us, but Sidney lived to be two
months short of his 8th birthday, so we figure we did pretty
good.
Good luck!
Amy, Dave, Sarah & Paul
(and their gaggle of giggling ferrets)
RIP Ian, Elektra, Claudia & Sidney