Kat asks:
>so...that said....HOW do we winnow out the TRUEly good snacks from the
>'opinions' of everyone?
 
Answer:  just look in the recent issue of "Ferrets" magazine and read
Dr. Jerry Murray's article!
 
Photo of Telemna:
http://tingilinde.typepad.com/starstuff/2005/05/cute_ferret_pho.html
 
Raw foods also have their downsides so there certainly are a number of
vets who don't advise them.  There also are vet who do advise them.  It
is one of those areas people could talk back and forth about till the
cows come home but since there is a lack of well designed good hard data
on if ferrets are actually more or less healthy on such diets it remains
a personal call issue.  Treat it like any other such issue: read the
downsides as well as the upsides.  (BTW, CA if memory serves, CA is one
of the states which had too many herds with bTB positive cattle to
qualify as "TB-free".  I can't off hand recall how that designation works
but I think that bovine TB needs to not be found in more than two herds
over a 5 year space of time.) bTB -- a fatal disease for ferrets -- is
among the diseases ferrets can get from raw foods that come from infected
animals.  Like most of the others cooking removes the danger.  As well
as the disease risk there is the problem that if raw food feeding is not
done correctly then all sorts of dietary disorders appear.  Meat alone
is missing a very large number of nutrients.  So it is like any of these
other serious choices: something a person needs to read up on from a
range of points of view before deciding, instead of just accepting one
POV.
 
Here are two good places to read multiple points of view on the topic:
http://listserv.cuny.edu/archives/ferret-search.html
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org
 
Scott has had a few folks write to him to test for possible high CO
levels in the home, and hopefully, they have BOTH used a detector and
gotten the ferret to a vet since, but replies are lacking so a number
of people are worried.  Scott, are you here?
 
Rach, what imagining was done and was a CBC with Chemistry Panel done?
Difficulty using rear quarters is a general symptoms which can be caused
by a wide range of medical problems, from insulinoma (possibly the most
common cause) to heart disease which needs treatment, to infection
(ditto) and on.  You don't mention the blood glucose having been checked.
With the lack of bowel control I would be most inclined in this ferret to
think about injury or a malignancy affecting the spine or spinal cord.
(I'm not a vet but have had ferrets in the family for 24 years.) If there
is lympho in the spinal cord we went through that with Meeteetse whose
first symptom was loss of baldder control but the rest added in, and some
things that helped her greatly were high Prednisolone doses, Torb,
mobility cart (IF okayed by treating vet), pantyhose slings )again IF
okayed by treating vet) (Instructions are in the archives above and see:
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org/browse.php?msg=SG7619 ,
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org/browse.php?msg=SG7410 ,
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org/browse.php?msg=SG5334 ,
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org/browse.php?msg=YG14150
(Note that the FHL moved to Smartgroups years ago and that the address in
text of this post is the OLD Yahoo one which someone else is now using.
The current FHL address is
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth ),
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org/browse.php?msg=YG12233
(Ditto the FHL address.),
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org/browse.php?msg=YG2212 .
 
I don't have time to go through the posts but among those you should find
places from which to start.
[Posted in FML issue 4894]