To Cindy Sooy,
> I have a 5 year old gib, Cocoa, who got hit with ECE pretty hard about 2.5
>years ago.  He did not regain his weight or energy levels til about 8-9
>months ago.  In the last few months he has been putting on an awful lot of
>weight but all in his abdomen.  The rest of his body is thin and bony.  His
>spine and hips are prominent.  He eats and drinks very often.  And lately
>his litter box has a very strong odor....  his heart sounds very good and
>x-rays show no tumors.  My vet wonders if it could be an adrenal problem.
>His coat is normal, no hair loss anywhere.
 
xxx Cindy - Cocoa's body shape problem is primarily a combination of severe
weight loss, and then severe weight gain in an older ferret.  I have seen
this many times, primarily in males.  What happens is that for various
reasons, heart disease, ECE, or other prolonged illness, a ferret will lose
a trememndous amount of weight, to the point wher it mobilizes it's skeltal
muscle mass to maintain its energy.  These ferrets get very thin.  However,
when they recover, they lack the capacity and often the exercise to put
this skeletal muscle back on the way nature had intended.  But they can
still put fat on.  In ferrets, the biggest storehouse for fat is the
abdomen - in and around the organs.  So although they are eating, the
muscle loss makes them look bony, and the deposition of abdominal fat makes
them look like a pear.
 
    The frequent urination and the strong smell of the litterbox, thogh
suggests a problem.  The most common reason for these signs is kidney
failure, where the water just passes through the kdineys instead of being
reabsorbed.  Another possibility is a urinary tract infection - bacteria in
the urine will give it a strong odor.  Cocoa should probably have some
bloodwork done and a culture of that urine just to be sure....
 
Bruce Williams, DVM, DACVP
Dept. of Vet Path, AFIP
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Chief Pathologist, AccuPath
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[Posted in FML issue 1300]