Rocky is not yet 3 years old, but the many responses I've received this
morning indicate it's not unheard of at that age.

As for how it's progressed, it's been gradual. First thing we really
had trouble with is pee / poop in the cage, on even on shelves near the
food and the beds. We didn't know at the time who was doing it, but now
that we've caught him going in odd places outside the cage, we're
fairly sure it's rocky. That has been going on for a few months now.

I'd say in the last month or so is when we really started noticing him
chewing on the other ferrets. It actually started with other males, but
he does pick on the female sometimes. (3 males, 1 female)

Hair loss has been more recent. I guess it started thinning a month or
so ago, maybe a bit longer, but I thought it was just shedding.
Recently it's gotten really bad, but only from the back of his head to
the top of his front legs.

We've had ferrets before who lost most all of the hair on their tail.
We took them to the vet and he said not to worry about it. Sure enough,
it grew back, eventually. As a matter of fact, our female's tail is
very sparse right now.


On 11/9/06, .:. Lin .:. <> wrote:
>
>Hi Steve,
>
>Just wanted to ask you a couple questions if you don't mind (we're in
>a similar situation). One of my ferrets is having similar problems as
>your little boy. He doesn't pee/poop wherever, but he's been having
>trouble peeing in some fashion (he'd usually go normally, but now it's
>like he pees himself sortof and it gets all over his belly sometimes,
>does that make sense?) He's also getting sexually aggressive and one
>of the females he especially picks on and she, too wimpers and can't
>get away. He's gotten so bad that I have to pry him off of her and it
>leaves marks on her neck. I've spoken with the vet about the
>possibility of adrenal, but she seemingly wants to dismiss it. He's 4,
>but she says that's most likely too young, and so she treated him for
>a urinary tract infection, although symptoms are getting worse. There
>isn't any hairloss though. She said if I still am confident it's the
>beginnings of adrenal, she'd run a blood panel.
>
>So my question is, did your boy start off with the aggressiveness
>first and the peeing/pooing problems and then came the hairloss, or
>did it all happen at once? I plan to go ahead and have bloodwork done,
>but I just wanted to ask you what you thought since you're seemingly
>having the same problems.
>
>Hope I didn't bug you or anything! :)
>

[Posted in FML 5422]