This sounds like its going to be hard to figure out.

This may or may not help but I'll pass it along anyway.

As far as passing gas I don't think its abnormal (at least I hope not),
our ferrets do that too

We had a ferret last year who would periodically vomit but then would
seem fine. This went on every month or so (We would find it in the
cage in the mornings when we got up). She would also vomit sometimes
in the evening when we put them back to bed, sometimes. One evening she
vomited but something about it was different, I guess it was her body
language that made me worry. The next day she did not look good, it was
Sunday and our vet was not open. The after hours clinic (not ferret
knowledgable) gave her a barium test but found nothing. She looked
better and we took her home. On Monday I took her to our vet but she
was like a new ferret and looked great. We came home with anti-nausea
meds. She didn't look quite so good the next day but we tried the
anti-nausea meds and waited. On Wednesday she looked a lot worse and
we took her back to the vet. He did exploratory surgery. The surgery
was long, she had bleeding and blood pressure problems, as he couldn't
find anything wrong.

He finally found that she had a tumor in the lumen of her intestine.
It would allow liquids to pass but not solids. She woke up from the
surgery but didn't survive until the morning. She was my "Maple Syrup"
girl because she smelled like maple syrup to me. She was also one of
the first ferrets.

It may be possible that your ferret has a tumor in the lumen (inside)
the small intestine. Your vet may be able to see it, if he does a
barium series. Give some barium and take a series of x-rays every few
minutes to view the barium as it goes through the digestive track. If
your ferret has a tumor like this then maybe it will show up as a
narrowing in the small intestine. If they do an exploratory have your
vet look for an area of the small intesting which is large and then
narrows down.

Keep an eye on Pig Pen because if he has this problem it will slowly
get worse and then the blockage will get to a point where he will stop
eating.

Good Luck

Mike

[Posted in FML 6617]