Dear folks,
My husband and I have had the pleasure of sharing our lives with 2 of the
Fredonia rescued ferrets.  Since a lot of you across the country followed
with interest and gave whatever support you could, I thought some of you may
be interested in how at least these two are doing.  We got two petite little
girls, one about 5 yrs. of age and I named her Love.  She is a sable with
black blotches on her adorable little nose.  Love has quite a bad case of
hip and hind leg arthritis, and the x-rays of her showed that she had had
ricketts as she grew due to malnutrition.  She is obviously a little
impaired with her walking but gets around fine, and plays with me and my
"sock ferret" ( a thick soft sock on my hand which we wrestle together with)
She is not willing to be receptive to the other ferrets and avoids them.
She is incredibly sweet and we make every day as full as we can with her.
We have a screened deck and she loves to go out there and hear the birds and
smell the fresh air and play with mom.  I am treating her with aspirin,
shark's cartiledge, cosequin, and I put vanilla yogurt in each supplemental
feeding I give her.  She eats well and her stools look good.  Without the
aspirin, she groans and moans with repositioning and is obviously hurting
quite a bit.  With it, she does much much less groaning and crying.  I hope
the cosequin will eventually allow me to reduce the aspirin and get the same
comfort level.
 
Joy is about 3 years of age I am told and she also groans and moans with
waking and moving around , but not nearly as pronounced as Love does.  I am
treating her with shark's cartiledge and yogurt (for calcium), and she eats
well and stools look great.  She is also very socially disadvantaged and
felt she had to fight everyone here (ferrets that is ) just for a place to
be and food to eat.  She has now begun to learn that the whole place is hers
too,(our ferrets are all free roaming 24 hrs.  a day.), and food is always
available.  I do supplement her with duck soup, but she eats also on her own
quite well.  I use the duck soup to boost her nutrition level.  I think her
sight is slightly impaired, because she walked into a thing or two, but not
impaired enough to keep her from totally enjoying her freedom and she plays
now every day.(not with ferrets, however) with mom and the "sock ferret",
but she does allow the other ferrets to come near her and touch noses etc.
So I think it will come in time.  She gets all excited and jumps the ferret
dance at times and it is so rewarding.  From day one she decided she liked
being free and would not have being in the cage after that, at all.  Love
needed the security of a closed door for about a week but only when we were
not at home.  They have been here almos 3 months, and I am so humbled to
have the oportunity to try and give these special little ones some
happiness, warmth, love and security for the time they have left.  Love had
a very very large ovarian cyst removed right after the rescue, and she would
absolutely not have made it this winter.  Joy had another disease related
operation, and the way I understand it, she also would not have made it
through the winte.
 
About the arthritis, I would not be surprised if the other ferrets who were
out in the extremes of Fredonia had arthritis and ricketts also.  After all
they were under the same exact conditions.  One way to check for crying and
moaning at night is to sleep in the room with them.  a few nights.  I have
not had Joy x-rayed, but suspect the same thing to show up as with Love.
 
If you pray for these and other Fredonia rescues, pray (if I may suggest)
that they will have many many days, months, years now that they are being
loved.  After what they went through , they deserve it.  We make the most of
every single day here.  If one of my special ladies get up and about, I drop
what I am doing, and see if they want to play or get a snack or just love.
 
From a priviledged adoptive ferret Mom
[Posted in FML issue 1872]