I really appreciate all the response and suggestions from everyone.
Most of the emails I received asked a lot of the same questions, so
I am sending out a blanket response covering those.

IBD- I asked the vet about this b/c I had a ferret with IBD and she
constantly had an upset stomach. The same vet had diagnosed her, and we
treated it prednisolone. The vet doesn't think Slinky has IBD b/c of
the clostridia. Plus the poops have a very distinct smell (almost like
blood, but there's no blood in the stool). I never noticed the smell
with my IBD ferret.

Food- Slinky eats a mixture of EVO (no gluten or corn, but does contain
chicken meal), Sheppard & Greene (gluten, corn meal and chicken meal),
and Zupreem (no gluten or corn, chicken and chicken meal). As I
mentioned earlier, he does have allergies to *something*. The vet
believes the allergy is to an outside agent as opposed to a food
allergy b/c his reactions manifested themselves mainly in his paws
(like it could have been a cleaning agent, detergent, etc). Now I'm
using a steam mop to clean the floors, vinegar and water to clean the
cage, 7th Generation wash detergent, but he still gets itchy skin if
we skip his prednisolone (wrote prednisone yesterday- and it is .3 ml
every other day- not every day, typing too fast). So, does anyone know
if there is a test to determine allergy to food? I'd really like to
test this before trying to switch 4 finicky ferrets. Also would
allergies cause his flora to get out of wack?

Adrenal- His itchy skin and diarrhea made me think he was adrenal at
1st, but the vet thought the 2 were unrelated figuring that the itchy
skin was caused from an allergy. He was tested for adrenal and it came
back negative.

Poops- normal while taking antibiotics. After a few days poops start to
look pudding and lighter in color. If I don't get antibiotics back into
him after a day or two, he develops watery diarrhea. I try not to let
it get to that point, but it's happened a couple times when he got sick
over the weekend. No tarry poops and only a couple that looked mucousy.

Probiotics- Slinky is getting 1mL of Propectin paste twice a day (each
time he takes his antibiotic). I recently bought some Uncle Jim's Duck
Soup, but he won't eat much of it- about 1 tsp/ day.

Misc- no gagging or coughing while eating. He has lost weight since
all this began, but has slowly starting putting back on some weight.
Slinky's disposition is great, he's playful- not restless or lethargic.

At this point, we are going to try again to knock out the clostridia
spores by treating with metronadizole for 21 days as some of you have
suggested. I'll check with my vet again about food allergies and
possible tests. I will post the outcome as well, in case anyone starts
having the same problems.

Many thanks,
Tara L. Elmore

[Posted in FML 6472]