From:
reeddion
Date: 2002-03-25 02:57:00 UTC
Subject: Surgery, some questions on raw food, red spots
My five year old male is going in tomorrow morning for surgery
(insulinoma). My vet has said that I can come and not only watch
but digitally film the surgery, so i was wondering if anyone would
be interested in it, or if I should post it, or something like that.
I'm
hoping to put it up on a website so that all the people that
donated money so i could afford this surgery can see it. It'll
probably be a large file, so I'm not sure how to go about posting
it.
However, he had small bowel movements for a couple of days a
while back, with straining, but it seems to have passed. Had me
worried about a blockage though. Now he has on the side of
near the base of his tail a red spot with a black blister (looks like
blood) in the middle of it and a few black specks around the
area, as well as a red spot on his side with no blister or
surrounding black spots. Any ideas of what this is or whether it's
dangerous. I'll of course have the vet look at it tomorrow, and
she plans to check everything out while we're in there for the
pancreas. I don't think it's flea related though, because I just
treated him for the second month in a row about a week ago with
kitten advantage. He won't let me try to pop the blister either
(won't stay still) but doesn't mind too much if I touch it. It's
small, with both red spots being the size of pencil erasers, the
black spots are the size of pinheads and smaller, but the blister
is about 3mm and raised.
Lastly, I am hoping to move to a raw food diet. I am considering
feeding him mice and chickens (frozen ones they sell for
snakes) on the advice of a vet's homepage. However, I was
wondering if I should supplement that with any vitamins or
anything else like eggs or chicken gerber's and ferretone, or
ferretzyme, or whatnot. Plus, I worry a bit that he will get blocked
from the bones if swallows them without chewing them well
enough. I'd grind the critters up, but I want him to have healthy
teeth by having to chew stuff. Also, what if he eats a bit of skin
that has hair and that blocks him? Do i need to skin them, or to
buy pinkie mice instead of adults? And lastly, is it ok to give him
acidiphilus as a supplement? (do ferrets have the same
intestinal bacteria as we do?)
Mostly, I want him completely off ferret kibble, because being an
obligate carnivore, the only non-meat he would encounter in the
wild would be partially digested in the digestive systems of his
prey, and that would be small amounts. The processed feret
foods all have some sort of grain as filler, often in the first
couple
ingredients, and have way too much sugar and artificial
ingredients, such as preservatives. Being insulinomic, I
definitely don't want him eating anything with sugar or carbs.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Amber & Hei Jyo Shin