Dear all,

Lots of ground to cover so please bear with me.

I got one of the fake Sandi emails, wrote to Sandi to give her a heads
up, got a bogus reply then blasted the idiot impostor to which he/she
asked if I would teach them proper English! Idiot!

I wrote a few weeks back about my 5 y.o. ferret Luna that was turning
orange. Whomever the powers that be that my vet converses with have
said they believe it to be adrenal disease. Next Tuesday we open her
up to see. Will let all know as this appears to be a new or unusual
symptom of adrenal.

I am now the proud mommy of a DMK male that I got from Trudy at
MaFF, his name is Randy and it's quite apropos! I wanted to see the
difference in life quality/quantity in a late neuter, and neutered he
will be! I thought he'd pester my females, but no, he likes the males
and scruffs and drags them off under something every chance he gets!
I have a 3 pound lap ferret, (Bruiser) that Randy scruffed, sprayed
and made his bi*ch! Bruiser was not amused.

He really is sweet though and his first full day I let him have the
unimpeded run of the ferret room while the others were caged and pissed
off. He constantly dooks as he explores and is pretty hilarious as he
learns to war dance :-) He's friendly and not nippy unless over tired,
which I think is pretty surprising considering his lack of human
contact. He readily comes to a squeaky and is rewarded with Ferretone,
which he LOVES, almost as much as Bruiser ;-) Today he had his first
visit to our vet who was duly impressed as were her vet techs with the
size of his, shall we say accessories?! He looses those next Tuesday
and hopefully that will reduce his 'randi-ness' :-)

I took in two of my little girls to the vet that I also got from Trudy
for their yearly exam and rabies vaccinations. Jasmine a 2 y.o. Path
Valley ferret did just fine; Cherish however having had a reaction in
the past was pretreated with Benadryl, and we waited almost 40 minutes
before tragedy struck. Bloody vomit and diarrhea, we gave her Dex and
more Benadryl, then put her on oxygen. She had several small seizures
then stopped breathing. Then her heart stopped. Her eyes opened wide
and her tail poofed and I thought she was a goner, so did my vet. She
compressed her chest a few times, bagged her and was going to intubate
her but her jaw had locked. They were shaving her little legs to put
in a catheter when her chest hitched and she began breathing again.
Cherish will NEVER be vaccinated again. This is the fifth ferret that's
had a reaction to the Imrab rabies vaccination, but hers was the most
severe by far. I mentioned that I had heard that ferrets get 'dumb
rabies' and can't pass the virus along in their saliva. My vet agreed
and also agreed with that being the case, that is asinine for my state
(RI) to require yearly rabies vaccinations. One of her techs also
pointed out that the shot is labeled as being good for three years! I
am now a full blown believer that these poor animals are being over
vaccinated and as mine have reactions, they will no longer be
vaccinated for rabies, only distemper.

Finally (I know, you were wondering if I was ever going to shut up!)
the 'Meat Only Diet'. I agree wholeheartedly with all that posted about
ferrets needing more than just meat, they need internal organs as well
as the skin and bones. I personally do not feed raw, but that is only
a matter of convenience. My ferrets are fed a mix of 8 in 1 (with 45%
animal protein) Zupreem and a gravy mixture that I make for them.
The gravy is fed twice daily and consists of the following: a whole
roasting chicken, duck, rabbit or turkey I'm sure would be fine as
well. I bake that in a pan of water and add in two pints of chicken
liver and hearts and two pints of chicken gizzards, as well as the
gross stuff in the little baggy they stuff up the chickens nether
region. Once this is cooked, I drain off the greasy water into a large
pot, add about 3 cups of Marshalls kibble, then I run the entire
chicken (bones, skin and all) through a meat grinder. The kibble soaks
up the greasy water and softens and I mix the ground chicken into this.
I've slowly been reducing the kibble that I add so that eventually they
will get only the chicken. As you can imagine I have quite a pile of
this stuff, so I divide it into plastic containers and freeze it until
needed. My ferrets have been eating this for about 2 years, they're
slim but muscular, have small and not too smelly BMs and have the
softest and shiniest coats of any ferret I've ever seen. They also
rarely get ill. Just a thought and a alternative to those that can't
bring themselves to feed raw or live :-)

Best wishes to all,
Leslie

[Posted in FML 5770]