I posted this a while back, but didn't get much of a response, and I tried
reposting it, and it disappeared somewhere, so here's trial number 3!
 
I took Fezzik to the vet because his stool has been a bit irregular and mucosy
(no blood in it or anything, though, and he's been acting completely normal).
The vet said it looked like colitis (spelling?), and ran some checks to see
what could have caused it (I think one test was for spirochetes?).  Anyway, he
found nothing.  He said Fezzik was too "fat and sassy" to really worry about it
(fat because he just now put on his winter weight/coat), but that it might be a
problem with his diet.  He said that originally ferrets were fed rabbits and
other animals (and still are in Europe, of course), and they got all that fur
and stuff for roughage, but they don't get as much on kitten food.  So, he
suggested trying to supplement his diet with bran flakes cereal and tender
vittles (I'm really not sure why the latter...).  Anyway, Fez refuses to try
bran flakes (not that I blame him!), although he's more than willing to lick
ferretone OFF of them, so I'm not sure what to do.  Should I:  1) try another
brand of bran flakes (but I think they all taste alike, so why wouldn't he?),
2) try mixing a little metamucil with ferretone and see if he'll lap at the
stuff anyway, or 3) just give up?  His stool isn't looking much better (at
times, its really almost all mucous, and other times its perfectly normal), but
I can't think of what else to do.  Its a new vet for us, but he only works with
exotics and he sees quite a number of ferrets, and he really seemed familiar
and knowledgeable about them in general.  (And I can't imagine the tests will
come out much differently now than a week ago).  There's still no blood in it,
his spleen is normal, he started sleeping a bit more once he put on the winter
coat, but Shadow always sleeps a bit more in the winter, too, and when he's
been up he's been playing as active as ever, and eating normally,too.  Anyone
have this happen to their fuzzies before?  Or have any suggestions?
 
-rochelle
 
[Posted in FML issue 0782]