From:
maja01
Date: 2010-03-07 18:16:24 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re:Amputated foot
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Hi.
I have a ferret whos mother at grooming also bit a part of his rear leg (foot + distal part of the calf, along with both bones) and a part of his tail. He didn't have any problmes learning how to walk or run, and was using his "pirat's shaft" as a regular ferret would use his hind leg. Despite most of the things I have read about tripod ferrets, at age about four months the amputation was necessary, because there was an injury and inflamation of the skin covering the bone (it looked like an ulcus). Probably his weight and size were the factors wich attributet to that (he is quite a large ferret, before castration his weight was around 2,2 kg, and not being fat at all).
Of course, at first we tried with medical treatment (to calm down the inflamation and hoping it will not reocurre) and kind of bandaging the leg, but at the end amputation seemd to be the best solution.
Anyway, when once on the surgey table, we decided to try one more thing, so we kinda sewed the lower part of the leg to his upper part - under a skin, so now he is (when he is using his leg) walking on his knee. When running and jumping he is not using this leg at all, but at slow speed or when standing, he is on all four. Despite his "disability" he is quite a normal ferret youngster, and is being quite an energetic bomb. He is runing around, jumping around, wrestling with other ferrets, ... doing normal things all normal ferrets do. The only thing he can not do (and I don't mind) - he can not climb stairs or a cage. But yes, he does climb on a cat tree, using ramps and tunnels and yes, I do take him out on a walks and all this also despite his unilateral (congenital) cataract.
Good luck.
m.
You can see some of his pics in my gallery (he is the black roan mitt and on first pics he is waering his post op. "bandage"), pics of him starting from here on http://www.zverinice.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=152&g2_page=8
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