Message Number: SG3054 | New FHL Archives Search
From: mjanke@miamiferret.org
Date: 2003-01-19 23:37:09 UTC
Subject: RE: ASAP: sudden death 3 ferrets - poison?
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <23746906.1043019429954.JavaMail.root@scandium>

What a terrible thing to wake up to. Please send all of our condolences.

I'm not an expert, but this doesn't sound like death from CO. Carbon Monoxide combines with hemoglobin, the oxygen carrying material in the blood stream and prevents oxygen from reaching vital organs, resulting in death if the level is high enough.

This is like suffocation and I don't believe this would result in the blood that was seen. It sounds like some type of toxin, like rat poison, which is an anticoagulant, but the odds they got into something like that sounds pretty remote from what you say.

I hope a necropsy will be done to determine the cause. I'm really sorry to hear of this.

mike

> my first thought was "canary in the coal mine." they are by far teh smallest critters in the home, after all. could this be carbon monoxide?