Dear Ulrike:
 
>My ferrets are all indoors, they have their own room with beds (cat
>carrier bed and a cat "toilet" bed and a wooden box for a bed), cat
>climbing frames, pipes and a lino floor.  I mop the lino floor twice a
>day with water and washing-up liquid.  Their bedding is pullovers and
>blankets and jackets which are washed every week or more often if needed.
>The group of 9 roam free in the room.  Then I have a group of 4 who are
>in a 2 storey wire cage that measures 3'x3'x3'.  I have 2 rescue ferrets
>right now who are in a 2 storey wood and wire cage.
 
This is not an easy case to diagnose from a remote site.  I was hoping that
you would tell me that they were housed outside in old chain link cages
with lots of poky wires sticking through.  But you can still have some
sharp places on regular ferret cages as well.  Would it upset the balance
of power if the cages were removed (just trying to eliminate
variables....)?
 
Usually abscesses do require traumatic injury, however, some can occur from
ingestion and dissemination of bacteria throughout the system.  I'm still
looking at the poky wire theory, though.  Are there any wires that they
could conceivably be poking themselves on?  Remember that in ferret cages,
fecal bacteria (E coli) are omnipresent and have the ability to cause
abscesses if inoculated accidentally under the skin
 
All recurrent abscesses should be cultured, especially when they occur on
different animals!  It will be interesting to see what the culture turns
up.  Right now, we will need to await culture results to see if anything
uncommon shows up.
 
with kindest regards,
Bruce Williams, dVM
[Posted in FML issue 3329]