Message Number: YG13085 | New FHL Archives Search
From: sukieferret
Date: 2002-05-13 14:05:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Urinary Blockages

> He has had three urinary blockages in the past six weeks
...
> In recent weeks Brutus has been itching more than usual, has
> been excessively grooming my other ferrets, is lethargic, and
> has been urinating/defecating outside his litterbox
consistently.
> He has also lost about one half pound since these blockages

I'm not a vet, but have 20 years with ferrets behind me.

If I were you I'd assume that there is a strong chance of an
adrenal growth being present and have an exploratory surgery
done. It is not unusual in male ferrets for the prostate to enlarge
in response to adrenal disease and that causes blockages.
Adrenal disease also causes most of the symptoms you
describe, while problems from an anlarged prostate can cause
the rest.

Surgery is the best approach for adrenal growths.

For those rare ones who can't have surgery I know that there are
some past posts by vet, Jerry Murray, whom I consider an
endocrinological ace, which discuss some medical options
when a prostate is up. They are a poor second but better than
nothing. You'll want to search on "prostate" and keep hitting
"Next" since Yahoo searches in chunks working backwards, and
I know that this topic was discussed some time ago.

Of course, I'm not a vet and may be missing something, btu this
sure sounds pretty well signature to me...

BTW, one of our's who blocked showed no adrenal problems on
the TN Panel but did have an adrenal growth.

Oh, and go to
http://geocities.com/sukieslist (but be fast about it because they
are doing some maintenance downtime sometime soon and I
forget when) and read up on this at some of the sites, esp the
Bradley Hills/ Ferretdoctor ones. Many of the vet sites have
useful articles on this by vets to help your vet.