From:
rick a kacer
Date: 2003-02-23 17:16:20 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Digest 4 Dec 2002 07:55:09 -0000 Issue 165
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <2979751.1046031438754.JavaMail.nobody@magnesium>
--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: rick a kacer <trickydick20@juno.com>
To: ferrethealth-digest-help@smartgroups.com
Hi All,
To make a long story short, we have had eight Ferrets and lost
three so far. The one loss is confusing me because I still can't be sure
it could have been avoided,and now it seems we may have another one
of
our fuzzy's with nearly the same symptoms.
Henry was given to us last summer, he was a brawny Silver mit. He
had been mistreated,at least in his trip here and was very hard to get
along with, at least from a human stand point. He did however do real
well with our other Ferrets. Anyway around Thanksgiving he started to
loose weight, to the point that he was starting to look very thin at the
haunches. We took him to the Vet. and he was diagnosed with
insulonoma
and was put on Prednisone. At first he seemed to respond to the
treatment
and started to get his appetite back, and then after about a week he quit
eating again, another trip to the Vet. This time his white blood count
was up and he was put on Baytril. Although he started eating again, he
never got his stamina back, nor did he gain any weight. He continued to
slowly go down hill until one morning we found him in what I would
consider to be a coma, and he died that evening. Is it possible for the
cancer in the pancreas to progress that quickly, or were there other
factors? The time frame for this was approximately two months.
I am very concerned about this as one of our other Ferrets
"Pepper" that we've had since she was a kit may be starting to exhibit
something of the same symptoms. With Henry, we didn't have much
history
to go on other than what we were told (which was very little),but
"Pepper" on the other hand has been with us since we bought her. She
is
coming up on four years old, and has been kept current with checkups
and
vaccinations. If anything she has always been a little on the hefty side
until now. I took her to the Vet. this past Thursday and he said that she
was quite gassy in the intestinal tract and her temperature was on the
low side. He suspected that she might have E.G.C. or whatever that
intestinal infection is called,as her stool was kind of grainy although
not green as of yet. He put her on Baytril and although we have been
treating her,she hasn't started to improve yet. I may be paranoid,but
it's hard to watch your little friends not enjoying life like they
should. I should perhaps mention that after Henry's death we did get two
more Ferrets. These two had been together since their purchase and
have
trackable historys. I am wondering if these two were perhaps carriers of
this E.G.C. and could have given it to Pepper? We had a occurrence of
this malady this past summer when my daughter brought her two newly
purchased kits over to play. We had only one Ferret affected by it then
and he responded very quickly to the Baytril treatment. I should also
mention that Pepper would like to be more active than she is,because
whatever this is, is causing her to be very weak. I would appreciate any
advise that any of you might be able to give. Thanks Rick