Kim wrote:
>Look at it this way, if it were your child, your mother or whomever you
>care about most in the whole wide world - wouldn't you get them medical
>care immediately?
 
BRAVO!
 
If something is serious, if there are symptoms which would lead you to
get care if you suffered from them (or care for your human loved one), if
a ferret can't breath well, is bleeding, is limping, in convulsing, etc.
CALL YOUR VET AND GET AN EMERGENCY APPOINTMENT to treat or fix the
problem!
 
Way too many ferret die absolutely NEEDLESSLY!  These are living beings,
not ornamental features, and they need and deserve your help and love.
(Sorry, have just run into too many like that again recently and they are
so horribly painful to read due to the how so many of such deaths would
have been totally avoidable with proper care.)
 
Swollen vulva and fur loss: Think sexual heat (which can be dangerous
due to complications like potentially fatal anemia), incomplete spay, or
adrenal neoplasia (depending on ferret and if a spay was done or partly
done, and age).  Time for a vet appointment no matter which of the three
it is!
 
For help with ferret health info on a *non-emergency* basis:
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth
http://geocities.com/sukieslist (which I need to update)
 
Honestly, there are halfway approaches, but your child's allergies were
already bad enough to give up earlier ferrets.  The only way to be most
fair to the children and to the ferrets is to wait for the child to
out-grow the allergy (which might happen during the teens), or to move
out, or for approaches to allergies to improve enough.  Three times
ferrets have been with you and then had to be elsewhere.  It's a
situation which calls for patience and putting your personal desires
aside for a long time, I am afraid, but that is part of life, especially
part of adult life.
[Posted in FML issue 3834]