> From:   Colin <[log in to unmask]>
> an albino."  Well, she is all white, no mitts, and she is not an albino.
> So if she isn't a silver mitt, what useful description shall we use for her?
> I always called her, unimagineatively, "white."  But I'm sure ferret x-perts
 
If she's all white with dark eyes, she would be called (yes, unimaginatively)
a "dark eyed white".  As Fara says, this is an advanced stage of silvering.
(I don't have the article in front of me, so if I'm wrong here, someone
please correct me)  Fara says that the term "silver" isn't actually a color,
but a process of the hair follicles losing their ability to produce pigment.
Thus, you can have black silvers, cinnamon silvers, etc...  Silvering
progresses as the ferret ages, so you may have a very dark baby who turns
into a dark eyed white in old age.  I'm also pretty sure that she said
all silver ferrets have mitts.
 
[According to Morton, there are apparently ferrets born black-eyed and
white.  As contrasted to albinos (pink eyes), they do have pigment, but
no fur pigments.
 
> From: Chris Lewis <[log in to unmask]>
> An enlarged vulva and hair loss on the tail in a spayed female can be
> caused by either fragments of ovarian tissue left behind from the spay,
> or by Cushings (adrenal gland) or by certain types of infection.
 
I doubt that an infection would cause the hair loss.  Hair loss is
generally a long term problem.  (speculation mode on)  I would
think that an infection would be more of a short term problem.
 
[You might think so, but that wasn't the case with Nicia.  It was
about 6 months before the vet finally solved her odd problems.
Hair loss, coat colour change (she was a rather nice cinnamon
at one point), swollen vulva, recurring infections, recurring
extreme lethargy, weight up and down like a yo-yo, etc.
At times remarkably like the symptoms of cushings, other times
not.  Ultimately convulsions and paralysis.  She had some sort of
woody mass in her abdomen.  Like a handful of toothpicks - this wasn't
something that she could have possibly swallowed.  We figured she was
stabbed with a bamboo stake or a stiff broom before being found and
turned over to the humane society, and before we got her.  After a
rather iffy recovery from the surgery, Nicia bounced back and lived
another four years (she was probably 8 when she died of kidney
failure).]
 
Also note that an enlarged vulva is a lovely moist place for an
infection to start.  So, although infection may cause it, it's most
likely that the infection was caused BY it.  So if an infection
is found, don't rule out the other possiblilities.
 
[Agreed.  Just don't start with the surgery.]
 
As to ovarian tissue:  Point well taken.  But, again, adrenal tumors
don't necessarily cause the production of excess estrogen.  So if
your ferret is showing other classic signs of adrenal tumors, don't
rule them out if the HCG shots work.
 
[Mocha showed the other signs.  Which are, in part, similar
to heat.  A day or two after the third shot, she bounced back, and
in a week her weight had gone back up to normal, and her fur
was coming in quite nicely.  A "miracle cure" too.  Less expensive
and less risky than Cushing's surgery.  So try the HCG first.]
 
I would also like to mention one other thing, a poor coat is not
necessarily indicative of an adrenal tumor.  Fur is an expendible
part of the animal.  Whenever their body is under stress, it is one
of the first things to go so that the body can use it's energy on
more vital things.  Hair loss is seen for general stress (i.e. when
cagemate dies), poor diet (i.e. dog food), and just about any
long term ailment.  Adrenal tumors/cushings does tend to have a
"classic" pattern, though.  It generally causes hair loss from the
tail, up.  ("symmetrical bilateral alopecia")  (Not to rule this
pattern out for other ailments.)
 
RE:  size of adrenals - the vet drew a diagram of Percy's adrenals to
give to my vet.  The normal one was the size of a grain of rice, the
other one was about 3 times that big.  (Note:  that's your average
"Uncle Ben's" type white rice that I'm talking about.)  But remember,
I caught Percy's rather early, so that's still somewhat small for
a bad adrenal.
 
On a related topic, I got Bree's blood work results back.  Everything
was normal.  The vet seems to think that she's pre-cushings, but isn't
sure because of the weird hair loss pattern.  We're adopting a
wait and see strategy on it.  (reminder:  she's had a terrible coat
for about a year or two, coarse and thin - not balding.  She was also
very lethargic for a while, which was what really scared me.  But,
she's bounced back from the lethargy, so I think that was merely a
"viral thing" that really took her down for about 5 weeks.)  I also
got her before I knew any better, and after watching this pet stores
ferrets for a few years I am sure that she is highly inbred.  It
could just be that she has a genetically bad coat.  Again, *MANY*
thanks to all of you who showed concern during my "panic period".
I was extremely worried for a while when she was so lethargic.  But
now that she's over that I'm doing much better.  I'm just keeping
a very close eye on her.
 
Now a sad club-related story.  I got a call a few weeks ago from a
lady who was absolutely devastated after losing her ferret and wanted
to get a new one.  She described it to me as her ferret being fine one
day, then all of a sudden got extremely ill (extremely lethargic) one
evening, and the next morning was dead.  I was extremely leery
about them bringing another ferret into the house after a sudden
death like that, since my first thought was that it could have been
viral.  So, I started asking questions trying to unravel what had
caused the death.  Especially since I had never heard of a viral
infection causing death so quickly with NO other symptoms (vomiting,
diarrhea, etc.).  I must have asked questions for a good 20 minutes
or so trying to figure it out, from poison to trauma to viral symptoms,
none of them seemed even remote possiblities.  Finally she said
something like "we were thinking about calling the club before
to see if we could breed her, but..."  So, I asked if the ferret was
in heat.  It turned out that she was, and for a good amount of
time.  The poor little girl died of aplastic anemia or heat
related infection.  This was a family that was very protective
of this ferret, they did everything they knew to do, got her
shots, bought a book, asked the vet TONS of health related
questions.  But, never in all of this, did anyone ever bother
to tell them that their little loved one would die if they didn't
bring her out of heat.  The vet had even told them HOW to tell if
she was in heat, but didn't bother to tell them the dire consequences.
So, the lady noticed when she went into heat, but figured "she was
too young to breed yet" and didn't think any more about it.
It was a heartbreaking story.  Anyway, the reason that I'm telling
you this, is so that all of you will be aware of the extreme
lack of information about ferrets that is available to the
general public.  As informed ferret owners we HAVE to talk to
other owners and give them information.  Whenever you talk to
a new ferret owner, make sure that you get some of the basic ferret
care points across (no wood chips, decent cage, good food, the
prev. story, etc...).  We cannot leave it up to the pet stores and
vets.  They 1. just plain don't know and 2. don't realize that it's
not common knowledge and just don't mention it.  And because of
a simple lack of knowledge, this family lost what sounds like
an exceptionally sweet ferret that was a vital part of their
family.  One of their sons couldn't even accept the news that
his best friend had died so suddenly, and sat there holding her
to him, sobbing for a long time until they pried her away to bury
her.
 
Oh, I should mention that when the lady in the story adopted the ferret
she was told that she was spayed and descented, socialized, and litter
trained.  None of the above proved to be true (this wasn't from a pet store).
 
This family has since adopted a very cute little girl from our
shelter.  She's an obnoxious little baby, extremely high strung
and nippy - a typical baby.  :)  But I'm sure with some
love and attention she will turn into a sweet little girl.  She
couldn't ask for a much better home.
 
- Nancy
 
Nancy Hartman                                   CIS graduate student
[log in to unmask]                                U. of Delaware
        President and founder, Delaware Valley Ferret Club
          Owner of Percy, Bree, & Popcorn, the ferrets
 
[Posted in FML issue 0465]