>... I am very nervous about the use of anesthetics and sedatives that >would be used with the surgery and blood tests respectively. I would do >anything to help him but I am afraid of the risks involved with the use of >these drugs. I would like to know how risky they are and what constitutes >a ferret as 'High Risk'. Please advise. .." Dear Tonya: In ferrets, I generally stay away from the use of any injectable anesthetics, as they can be unpredictable in ferrets and result in prolonged anesthesia. I generally recommend inhalant anesthesia (gas) such as isoflurane for all procedures, whether it is a short procedure such as blood drawing, or a long procedure like an adrenalectomy. With gas, if the ferret gets too deep, you can always turn it off, but with an injectable, you can't draw it back out. I also generally do not recommend premediciations, as most of these are also sedatives and can give unpredictable results, or cause hypothermia - a major cause of death in ferrets during routine surgeries. For short procedures, masking down with gas, a blood draw, and recovery usually takes only five minutes. For abdominal surgeries, I generally recommend an endotracheal tube, IV fluids (warmed) and careful attention to warmth to prevent hypothermia. Regarding the level of risk for anesthesia, this generally refers to concomitant disease. It is often difficult to assign a category of risk to an older ferret without a complete workup, but I would immediately classify ferrets with heart disease, unstable diabetes or systemic neoplasia, like lymphoma as high risk, animals with stable insulinoma as moderate, and most animals with adrenal disease as low risk. This is far from a complete listing, but an otherwise healthy, 3-year old with adrenal disease probably represents a low surgical risk in the hands of a competent surgeon. With kindest regards, Bruce Williams, dVM [Posted in FML issue 3219]