In August, I adopted 2 ferrets and fostered 2 ferrets from Oxford
Ferret Rescue. Because Jebabba, my only remaining ferret from my
original group, had IBD, all 4 of the new ferrets had to be switched
over to his chicken, corn, and wheat free diet so they could be caged
together. (The point was to get him some friends since all of his other
cagemates had passed on.) The diet consisted of Hill's d/d Duck and
Green Pea and Innova Evo Red Meat Small Bites.

They lived together for about a month, and then Jebabba passed away
from hepatic lipidosis. After he was gone, I switched them back to a
regular diet - The Ferret Store original, Zupreem, and Innova Evo.

The week that Jebabba died, Mr. Big (one of the 5 year old fosters)
had to have emergency bladder stone surgery. There were over 100 tiny
stones. The analysis came back as cystine, and he was put on Thiola. It
seems to be helping, as the stones that developed between the time of
the surgery and the time the analysis came back are breaking up and
passing.

Then just last week, Ellie, one of the 2 year old females I adopted,
had brown urine. I took her to the vet, and xrays revealed bladder
stones in her as well. Her surgery yesterday went well. She had
significantly fewer bladder stones than Mr. Big, and they had mostly
clumped together into one big stone. After seeing Mr. Big's stones just
a couple months ago, they were able to say after removing her stones
that Ellie's were cystine as well. The stones were still sent out for
analysis, but they looked exactly the same as Mr. Big's stones in color
and consistency.

After determining that both ferrets had the same rare kind of stones,
my vet (Dr. Gold at Chadwell Animal Hospital) went on the Veterinary
Information Network and found a post from 2003 about a situation where
2 ferrets in the same household got cystine stones. Those ferrets were
on the Hill's d/d venison, duck, and rabbit diets as well. I think the
reason that Mr. Big's stones were so bad was because he took to the new
diet right away and pigged out on it. The others took more time to take
to it.

I just wanted to pass this along in case anyone out there is feeding
any of these diets for medical reasons. You may want to have some xrays
done to make sure that there are no stones. I know that I am going to
have my other two fuzzies xrayed to see if they are ok.

Kristen

[Posted in FML 5806]