From:
"ferretboogie35"
Date: 2009-06-15 22:57:05 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] unexplained onset of diabetes: zinc poisoning
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
I learned from one of my vets, that one cause of diabetic symptoms in a ferret, as in a bird, can be zinc poisoning. My vet made the connection from treating birds presenting with very high blood sugars who live in galvanized wire cages. Then a ferret was brought in for treatment, with an insanely high blood sugar, so he asked what kind of cage the ferret was housed in.
When galvanized wire oxidizes, zinc oxide is the whitish powder coating that forms on the wire surface. Birds who use their beaks to aid in climbing the cage bars (or ferrets in such cages who are cage biters) ingest the zinc and over time it accumulates to a toxic level.
He told me that treatment involves insulin to get the sugar down (and said it could take a high dose), a tox screen for zinc, then if zinc is detected, detoxification. If zinc is the cause, the diabetic symptoms should resolve themselves once the zinc is gone, so the animal need not be on insulin permanently.
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