From:
sukiecrandall@telocity.com
Date: 2002-10-06 20:45:36 UTC
Subject: RE: [ferrethealth] RE: Underweight ferrets
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <21771492.1033937136744.JavaMail.root@scandium>
> vet told me that he did not think they could get them. The club used to
> sell ferret wormers but no one ever found any worm segments. Chris.
> PS ferrets are not supposed to be plump only long and slinky.
Tapeworms apparently can happen according to some past vet posts in the Archives but are very rare. If they are present there are things in the feces that look like rice but move a bit; those are the shed segments. There is a really good Bruce Williams write up on types of worms in the FHL Archives and in the parasites compilation in the Files Section. BTW, he notes that the tapeworms usually do not present a health problem, if I recall right, which was true for an honorary uncle I used to have, too, who had one for a very long time. (Don't know how unusual that is.)
Agreed, that ferrets do not need to be plump.
Sherman is always plump but he was found almost starved to death, with gangrene, with over 30 ticks (That's when they stopped counting.), etc. Having actually starved once or more can make food more attractive (works for humans, too...).
We've found that the ones who don't get plump seem to live longer and stay more active and happy, but we worry about old ones or sick ones who are thin because they can be hard to stabilize through a down-turn.