Pred belly is fat.  I have a human friend who is a 15 year old boy.
He was on prednisone to help control the effects of Meniere's disease.
In spite of a normal diet and weekly exercise practicing and teaching
karate, he gained weight and got a definite pred belly.  He recently
found out that the diagnosis was incorrect and was taken off of
prednisone.  In less than a year he has lost over 70 pounds.
 
Obviously, you can't take your ferret off of his prednisone, but you can
do the normal things you would do to help an overweight pet.  Our ferret
has been on pred for two years now.  We have helped him lose some of his
pred belly by reducing the amount of duck soup he gets for his between
medication meals snacks.  We have purchased and created new toys to
stimulate his interest.  We play with him running up and down the stairs.
We take all of the socks out of his hidey hole in one room and put them
in another room in a basket so he has to work to get them out of the
basket and run back and forth to restash them under the bed.  We get on
the floor and play chase with him.  In other words, the best thing you
can do it play, play and play some more.  Since we have been actively
less worried about how sick our ferret is and more concerned about how
much fun he can have he has lost weight from rolley polley fat down to
a little pudgy.
 
Veda
[Posted in FML issue 4739]