From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2008-07-31 15:51:40 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: ferret advice
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Well, first off, Amoxi goes bad about 2 weeks after it is
mixed with water, so it was not a good thing to give her.
I don't know how long the Metronidazole is good for, but
giving a short run of antibiotics for the wrong things is a
very well known way to create worse infections and
stronger bacteria.
By "not going to the bathroom" do you mean urine or
bowel movements?
If you mean bowel movements then you have to consider
that these ferrets may have partial blockages from eating
something they should not have eaten.
If you mean urine then adrenal disease needs to be considered
for these ferrets but so does another problem -- uroliths which
are urinary stones. What are they being fed? There are
several types of urinary stones ferrets can get and they have
different triggering causes. The most common, struvite stones,
is caused by inexpensive foods with a lot of vegetable matter in
them. I know that when people are used to the way humans can
safely eat this seems like a viable way to save money, but it
actually winds up more painful and more expensive with ferrets.
Adrenal disease can cause fur loss, but so can malnutrition,
parasites like fleas or mites, skin fungus, and some other things
recently discussed in another post. Adrenal disease is the most
common cause, though.
Veterinary care is a basic, and ferrets need MORE of it, and tend
to cost more than many other pets. They are not a good choice
for those who have to watch their money carefully, but with
budgeting and saving from scratch, not having ones who are too
close in age, and practicing careful husbandry with regular
veterinary care people on limited means have managed one to
three often enough while providing good care.
There is no substitute for care by a ferret-knowledgeable vet
but later on in this post I mention some ways you may be able to
get those costs under control better.
It sounds like you have way more ferrets than you can afford
to provide with medical care. Luckily, you have realized it
before falling into the bad habits of an animal hoarder,
which is thought to possibly be a form of obsessive-compulsive
disorder. If you stop providing veterinary care, though,
you will take that horrid step into being a hoarder, so what
you need is a solution that allows you to find ferret vet if
yours is not a ferret vet, and allows for the ferrets to have the
medical care they need to survive.
Here is one place where you can look at lists of some ferret
vets
http://ferrethealth.org/vets/
which moderator Pam Sessoms makes available
and there are others such as those in a list in
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/FHL5210
Here are two places that list shelters:
SOS Shelter List
http://www.supportourshelters.org/
AFA Shelter List
http://www.ferret.org/links/shelters.shtm
and I think both list the shelters' vets
You might want to see if any of your area ferret shelters get good
enough contributions that they can afford to work up a fostering
agreement with you. In that situation you would provide day to
day needs but they would legally own the ferrets and would
provide the veterinary care. Not all shelters can afford to do that.
You may also want to see if you can work up an arrangement
with any ferret vets where you exchange some labor for care,
or create items that the vet can sell in the hospital to help
finance the care. Not all vets can do this, and some states may
not permit it to be done.
Also look into:
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/financial_aid.htm
Finally, you may have take into account what it costs to care
properly for ferrets, complete with the medical care they need
and from that figure out how many you can afford, then give
away the others through a shelter or through your own contacts.
If the second, make sure they are not being fed to snakes, make
sure that people can afford their care, etc.
If you want to learn more about hoarding to know what you
are avoiding (for example, hoarders often feel that they are
the only people who can care for the animals and the animals
consistently suffer horridly as a result with the people not
letting themselves realize it):
http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/oct02/021015a.asp
http://www.tufts.edu/vet/cfa/hoarding/
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/54031
<http://www.hsus.org/pets/issues_affecting_our_pets/behind_closed_doors_the_horrors_
of_animal_hoarding.html>
http://www.pet-abuse.com/database/
Feels good for you as well as the ferrets to avoid that,
doesn't it?
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
--- In ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com, "Terrennce" <Keene_terry@...> wrote:
>
> hi there my wife and I had nine ferrets until this morning when i
> woke up to go to the bathroom and found our approx. 5.5 yo silver and
> white female, Gypsy, not with-us. We've had her approx. 1 year, when
> we got her she had earlier been shot with a pellet gun in a home
> break-in and her mate was killed. she made it though but was a very
> petite gal.
>
> a couple of weeks ago one of our males, Scorpio, 2.5-3 yo
> wouldn't go to bathroom and we took him to the vet and the put him on
> a couple of antibiotics and took his blood and sent him home he is
> doing better but doesn't have alot of energy he'll eat his treats but
> soon finds a nap site and goes back to sleep, also where they shaved
> him at his fur isnt growing back.
>
> Back to Gypsy, a week ago she came
> up with kinda the same symptoms so instead of paying another 400
> dollars to a vet that never did give us a reason for what was going
> on and wanting to run more tests and a biopsy, which, im told is not
> recommended, and would cost total a thousand dollars, im sorry i love
> my ferrets more than anything in life but im not made of money i make
> like ten dollars an hour.
>
> So we finished the medicine amox. and
> metronidazole and force fed her with a syringe meat based baby food,
> pedialyte, kibble, canned ferret food, water mix and made sure she
> was drinking water for over a week but noticed she started shedding
> all over yesterday.
>
> My concerns first why after all of our efforts
> with Gypsy did she die and secondly of Scorpio why he doesn't have
> the energy and why his fur isnt growing back in and is there a way of
> learning how to treat ferrets to avoid the high costs of vets or to
> divert them because it already costs a lot to care for eight ferrets
> of which are rescues from homes that couldn't provide for them.
>
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