I agree with Jeff. I have often been astonished after a ferret dies to
be told by my vet after she does a necropsy, (or been told what the
histology result from a lab is), how other things rather than the main
cause of death are wrong with a ferret while it stayed seemingly in
normal health. My vet's take is always "ferrets are tough". She says a
ferret hides its illnesses more effectively than either cats or dogs,
and you "never know what's going on in the inside".

Even with ultrasounds and Xrays sometimes there are problems that
cannot be diagnosed until the animal is opened up - and even then its
not completely obvious until histology is done. I (and she) have
sometimes been shocked by necropsy results that have shown much worse
problems than even the bloodwork and ultrasounds have shown.

It's easy to say the last thing that happened/was done to the animal
is the cause of death, but there are such things as coincidences, and
a dissection/necropsy (even if you can't get histology done because of
the cost) will often show an animal that had problems. Ferrets truly
are stoic. Some animal species show little signs of illness prior to
dying - maybe a survival mechanism so the predators don't get you until
you really are at death's door?

I know the first thing I do when a ferret dies is blame myself for
having missed something or done something. But I try to remember that
they are (at least here in the US) a species with a lot of innate
health issues - and that sometimes bad things happen coincidentally or
just after a vet visit or treatment. But they happen at home as well -
seizures, bleeding, wheezing, sudden death. Once I had a ferret (given
to me by someone who was re-homing her) who ran across the floor the
second day I had her and she dropped dead. She had an undiagnosed major
heart problem - I think that was the first time I realized that like
humans sometimes they look good on the outside and can have major
problems on the inside.

I've had 6 ferrets (one who is 3, one age 6, one age 8, two possibly
5yo, one maybe 4) implanted with the Deslorelin depot in the last two
months and all have been fine - it is the "new" Deslorelin with the
larger needle used to put the implant in.
Meryl

[Posted in FML 7414]