From:
keldah_99
Date: 2002-02-18 11:08:00 UTC
Subject: Very concerned about weight--someone please respond
(This is a copy of my original post.)
Hi everyone. I am new to this group and have a question for all of
you. And let me warn you, this is a little long. I have two babies,
Goku, who's 1 today :) , and Kira, who will be one next month.
Both of them had pretty healthy appatites when they were younger and
still do. At one point they were both pretty big. You know how when
they lay down, their bodies and their butts kinda spread out, well
that's how big Kira was. It scared me at first because I was
thinking there might be sever blockage of somesort but she still had
healthy stool amounts so I ruled that out for the time being. Since
I am in school away from home, my mom takes care of my babies for now
until I get my apartment in April and then they'll be with me. I
educated her very well on how to care for them so everything is fine
on that front. I go home everyother weekend to cut their nails,
play, bring food and treats, etc. Well, when I was home all last
summer, they were both fine. Then I left for school and came back
about two or three weeks later, and Kira literally has half, if not a
little more, the size that she was when I thought she was fat. I
freaked. I asked mom if she had been acting depressed or if she
noticed she wasn't eating or if Goku wasn't letting her eat, and she
said no to all of that. She did say that she noticed how when they
both went to eat, Kira would eat a little and then go lay down. When
Goku would go to sleep, she'd then get up and eat some more. So, we
thought maybe Goku was being too aggressive and would seperate them
when they would go to eat. That seemed fine but she was still
skinny. When I went home this past christmas break, I had brought
two tubes of that ferravite stuff. It's a high calorie supplement
that increases appatite and weight gain. Kira is just a picky as I
am when it comes to trying new stuff, especially if it smells like
that, so having her try it was an ordeal. During one wrestling
match, she finally tried it and now she LOVES it. Since the first of
January, she's seemed to gain some weight back. She looks a lot
better now. When I had taken her to the vet for one of her shots
when she was still fat, the vet said that it might be a hormone thing
and that female ferrets tend to have fluxuating weight. Since both
of my babies are fixed, there's no chance of any offspring. He said
for me to watch her and if the weight didn't stabalize, to bring her
in and they'd do a ultrasound to see what's going on. Well, that's
when she started loosing her weight and I figured she was just doing
what he said and that's why we didn't take her. But I don't like how
she got so skinny. She's eating with Goku again and comes running
when she sees her ferravite stuff so I know she's eating better now.
I'm going home again today and will write about how she looks when I
get back. Does anyone know if something could be wrong or has seen
this before? I know that since female ferrets are smaller they tend
to be skinnier, but it still worries me.
Thank you for everything!
Keldah