From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2001-11-08 18:08:00 UTC
Subject: Diet when ill was Re: URGENT: Diagnosed megaesophagus
--
Sometimes their tastes seem to change with illness. Many years ago
(I guess 15 or 16.) Haleakala was diagnosed with Sjogren's Syndrome
by a specialist, a marvelous ex-human opthalmologist who became a
veterinarian with an eye specialty. (Was it actually that? No one
knows, but it did present like Sjogren's and developed as Sjogren's
does over time till it finally created too much damage and took her.)
She developed a sudden taste for sardines in oil. They had never
interested her before but during her final months she absolutely
relished them and they kept her going. In a serious illness
sometimes you just give what the sick one will take.
It's marvelous that tuna worked for Magellan; without that tuna he
would have lost out and so would every ferret whose people could
learn from him.
For clarification, I was not trying to endorse tuna fish as an
acceptable food for ferrets. I was trying to say that I found a food
that Magellan thought was appealing so I used it to get him started
eating again. Prior to this, he was my one kid who loved cooked beef!
I don't remember him tackling me for my tuna fish sandwiche but
apparently the tuna appealed to him.
-Carla