Our first (and my personal favorite) ferret has been having problems
lately. Today we took him to the vet, who says it's most likely
adrenal. He said we have 3 choices:

A) Let it go, he could live for a couple of years w/o getting any worse

B) Take him to a state university a couple of hours from here to have
an ultrasound done to confirm

C) Surgery. This would be done in house, and estimated cost is
$350-$400

(While the cost of surgery is not out of the question, it's also not
pocket change for our family.)

 -------- 

Now, I'll describe the symptoms and why we took him in, for all the
experts here:

Loss of fur around the neck and front shoulders.

He seems very thin, though the doctor says he went from 2.7 to 2.3oz,
which he says isn't horrible. (That was over the course of more than a
year.)

He relieves himself all over the place. He peed on my wife while she
was holding him, on our couch, and in his cage he'll poop wherever,
even inches from his bed. We've had to clean up shelves all over the
cage recently. At first we weren't sure who it was, since 4 ferrets
share the cage, but now we're pretty certain it's always, or almost
always, him.

He's been chewing on the other ferrets ears. Not just once in a while,
not in a grooming fashion. Several times a day we have to go in and pry
him off of our other ferrets because they're wimpering and can't get
away from him.

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Opinions, experience, and advice welcome.

Steve

[Posted in FML 5421]