From:
miamiferret
Date: 2001-12-05 22:28:00 UTC
Subject: Re: ECE
Agressive supportive care is the key. You must help your ferret
survive the infection and it will probably not be any easy road at
his age. The 7 year old is even more at risk with hypoglycemia.
Keeping her separated is not a bad idea, but ECE is highly contagious
and it's unlikely that you will be able to prevent exposing her to
the virus without extreme quarantine procedures if she's in the same
house. If she's real lucky she won't get it, but in that case, I
would assume she's probably had it sometime in the past.
First, get into a vet and have them both checked over. Have your vet
show you how to check for dehydration, and possibly even how to give
subcutaneous fluids at home if necessary. A bland, easily digestible
diet is essential. Probably the best thing for this is plain old
Gerber's chicken baby food, 2nd stage (blue label). He MUST eat a
bare minimum of 20cc's three times a day just to survive.
Dr. Kemmerer, noted ferret vet, recommends very aggressive treatment
right away, including having the ferret spending the first 48 hours
in the clinic, on an IV I believe. Her "protocol" for ECE treatment
was in a recent issue of "Ferrets" and I've also posted it on my
website... http://www.ferrethealth.info - you'll see a link to Dr.
Kemmerer's Protocol under "Recent Additions" at the top right of the
page.
mike
--- In Ferret-Health-list@y..., "kriss21117" <bik2@h...> wrote:
> does anyone have any help or suggestions in regard to ece? i just
> found out that my 5 year old boy ferret has apparently caught it
from
> the 2 new babies that we brought into our home last week. I also
have
> a 7 year old who has hypoglycemia already, but she is not showing
> signs yet. I dont know what to do as i just found out tonight that
he
> has it and i am supposed to keep them separate. i dont have another
> cage and am at a loss. does anyone have any help or suggestions?
> Please? I am losing my mind, thinking my poor boy is sick because I
> wanted 2 more baby ferrets.