Message Number: FHL13639 | New FHL Archives Search
From: "elliot_frances"
Date: 2011-07-14 14:12:41 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] two-year-old ferret with undiagnosed condition
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com

Hey guys:

I wanted to pick your knowledgeable brains. We have a two-year-old ferret suffering from an unknown illness/condition.

We got Marten and his brother from Petco in February 2010; at the time, he was nine months old. By June, we noticed he was having trouble getting up the stairs. He literally had to pull himself up because his back legs weren't strong enough. Within another few months, he had abandoned stairs altogether. He now resides on the second story and only comes downstairs when we carry him.

He walks like an old man, very unsteady on his feet. It seems like his back legs have continued to weaken; when he walks his front paws have begun curling over. He falls over easily, too.

Our vet ran the full range of tests on him twice: X-rays, bloodwork, ultrasound, you name it. The vet is puzzled; at this point we're calling it a degenerative disc disease (the X-rays showed no sign of arthritis). I give him a bit of powdered taurine, carnitine, and glucosamine with his daily Ferretvite.

Has anybody ever seen a condition like this? Any ideas what we're dealing with, or if we should be doing something different?

Thanks for any advice!

Laura
laura@bigfatcat.net



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