From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2005-02-24 17:05:12 UTC
Subject: RE: Granulomatous steatitis = adrenal histopath
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <3180420.1109264712786.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
In mammals in general an athletic build usually has the best health results.
Yes, nutritional steatis (yellow fat disease) has been documented in ferrets, usually when a diet had too much of certain oily marinefish in it, but the culprit is too much poluunsaturated fat or too little vitamin E no matter what the source. Information can be found on pages 166 and 167 of _Biology and Diseases of the Ferret, second edition_:
"Poluunsaturated fats are highly susceptible to oxidation within the food source as well as within the host's tissue, and vitamin E is a critical nutritional component in protecting tissue lipids from oxidative injury."
It says that in one outbreak PUFA (polyunsaturated fatty acids) levels were 7.7% of the diet which was considered excessive. The ferrets were being given similat proportions as were used for mink but ferrets' dietary needs differ from minks'. BTW, squid is not recommended for ferrets due to high PUFA levels (17.9%). (We had one who used to steal pieces of fried calamari with lemon from me each time I had it and Steve and I carefully made sure that she had little and far between.)
Young growing kits are "found dead or affected kits are depressed, cry out... reluctant to move"... "diffuse swellings undr the skin and prominent lumps in the inguinal areas".., [blood tests show] marked neutrophilia with a left shift and mild microcytic normochromic anemia"..."fat in subcutaneous and abdominal areas is yellow-brown and of a coarse and granular texture...infiltrated with large macrophagfes, mononuclear cells, and fibroblasts..." There is a lot more info there, of course.
Treatment is to stop the dietary cause, and affected animals "should be injected with 10 IU vitamin E daily for 2 days... E is added to the feed at 30 mg (30 IU)/ferret/day for 10 days, 15 mg for another 5 days, and 10 mg/ferret/day as a maintenance diet.
Your adopted ferret yellow fat case is the second one I have heard of in the last couple of months. Before that it had been years since I'd heard of one with this, but I am not a vet nor a veterinary nutrition expert. If it is not a coincidence only, I wonder if some of the inexpensive cat foods have had the pulyunsaturated fat content increased.