From:
mjanke@miamiferret.org
Date: 2002-12-11 00:12:12 UTC
Subject: RE: Chomping noises- Dr. Williams can you respond too...
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <29085469.1039565532874.JavaMail.root@scandium>
While the diet Bandit is getting may be contributing to weight gain, I believe that prednisone tends to make them retain water and that's why many ferrets with insulinoma get the infamous "pred belly" as some call it. I don't know how much you're feeding him, but three times a day is probably a little too long between meals if he's not eating anything else. It might be OK to cut back slightly on the total amount if it's a lot, but I would spread it out a little more. At least four times a day.
Proglycem doesn't work for all ferrets, but it could be worth a try and if it works, you might be able to reduce the pred dosage.
If you want him to drink, you might try putting your fingers just slightly below the surface in a bowl of water. Ferrets seem to love to lick water off our fingers and this can fool them into thinking that's where the water is coming from. Of course, this is a pretty time consuming task just to get him to drink every day. I'm not sure if drinking water is any different that getting the water from the food. Beasley was on a soft diet with added water for quite some time and I never saw him drink water.
mike
Author wrote:
> wonder if the vet is overlooking something. Just a brief recap, Bandit is
> about 5 or 6 could even be older, he's as the vet puts it obese, weighing 4.2
> lbs. The vet did an x-ray of his abdomen because it is quite large and drags
> on the floor when he walks, the vet says it's fat in there, and that Bandit
> needs to loose weight because the fat is pressing on his organs and he's
> uncomfortable and that's why he probably whimpers when you pick him up or
> when he moves around. Bandit has been on pred now for over a year (was .50
> and raised it to 1.00 1x aday) the vet says the pred increases the appetite
> and I should switch to the proglycem??