Hi-I haven't posted in awhile.  Any ideas would be appreciated.
 
Bandit is an almost-7-yr-old insulinomic on prednisone 0.4mg twice a day.
He was drug-free for a year, and we started with lower doses of pred back
in December, when he lost half his body weight and started showing
symptoms a week after his best friend died.
 
Since then, he has lost two other friends and has taken it all really
hard.  He has hind end weakness, occasional diarrhea (partly, I think,
b/c his latest batch of chicken gravy was too liquidy), eats Bob Church's
chieckn gravy modified for insulinomics, and gets along great with my
other two remaining ferrets, who are younger and more active than he is.
 
We added two more ferrets to the group within the last month (they were
quarantined for three or four weeks first, ADV-tested, otherwise tested,
etc.  and not introduced until this past week, after they'd been here
long enough not to be stressed themselves and be shedding any
stress-induced viruses).
 
Bandit has been getting along fine with them-in fact, they pretty well
leave him alone, as if they know he's frail, and did not end up bein any
sicker or seem stressed, have more diarrhea than normal, etc.
 
Today he started having brown, greasy, somewhat seedy diarrhea than has
been getting on him.  My biggest concern with this is that he has been
eating it-EWWWW!-and not just what gets stuck to him; I caught him
licking it off thr floor.
 
Any ideas as to why (I thought perhaps the chicken gravy was going
through him and that's what it tasted like to him) and how I can get it
to stop?  I don't want him getting sicker from eating feces.
 
Any direct responses will be easier for me to catch up with-I have been
working 16 hour days at my animal hospital and doing the overnights...
 
Thanks!
 
-April Campbell
 
FYI, I am a vet tech
[Posted in FML issue 4882]