From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2005-08-17 19:08:40 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Obese ferrets?
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <2244285.1124305720807.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
We try to not have too much overweight on them, but to let them have their natural builds and preferably a lot of muscle. Some will have some overweight on top of that, like Telemna right now who is having some trouble learning that she can be active with poor eyesight.
Too much fat is not a healthy condition, but in human studies if there is good muscularity underneath that can decrease many of the risks associated with it.
Ferrets don't tend to have the vascular risks we humans do, but in human studies too much overwieght and lack of muscularity can also lead to other problems including increased rates of malignancies in hormonal tissues (and certainly we see too many hormonal growths in ferrets with insulinoma and adrenal growths) and diabetes (which ferrets sometimes get).
Our ferrets vary from Telemna who right now feels like a little seal with too much blubber that we need to reduce from her build by building her confidence more and more, to Morney who is built like a weasel -- all thin and flexible and fast. Morney looks at a distance like she must be skin and bones but on touching her a person finds that she is all muscle so she also weighs a lot more than she looks like she would weigh (because muscle is far heavier than fat for the size piece). She's a gymnast of a ferret.