Hi!  I'm new to the list and this is my first post, and WOW I've just got to
share this!!!
 
I just read section 8.3 of the FAQ, about trembling, and I am both relieved
and *really* po'ed.  We've had ferrets for almost a year now, so we aren't
*that* new to them, but I encountered a problem in our two newest ones that
I was very concerned about -- and now it turns out to be NORMAL??!?  *sigh*
 
Here's the story.  Last month I noticed Xena, one of our 6-month olds, was
shaking pretty badly one evening when I picked her up from her cage after
she'd just woken up.  I was very concerned when it kept going on, so I took
her to my vet.  He ran a blood test and told me her glucose was very low,
but neither of us could believe a 5-month old ferret had an insulinoma.  He
ran several more tests, but all of them came back low.  We agonized over
what to do and almost had surgery performed, but before we got the chance to
really make a decision (we were thinking of taking her down to the vet hosp
at Kansas State), I noticed her sister Gabrielle, also 5 months at the time,
was also shaking.  So I had the vet run a glucose test on her also, and hers
also came back low.
 
Well, my vet got suspicious and ran Gabrielle's test again with plasma
instead of whole blood -- and lo and behold, it was normal.  So we got some
more blood from Xena (my poor punctured babies...) and her test came back
normal also.  So the vet was just at a loss, and I've been worrying over
this for a few weeks...
 
AND NOW I FIND OUT THAT IT'S NORMAL FOR FERRETS TO SHIVVER WHEN THEY FIRST
AWAKE, AND EVEN JUST WHEN THEY'RE EXCITED OR COLD!!!!!
 
To think, we almost put our poor little Xena through major surgery for
nothing. I feel like such a terrible mommy... *sigh*  And why didn't my vet
know this?
 
Just had to vent...  (Thanks to whoever put this in the FAQ!!!)
 
-Tasha & Belinda, with Xena, Gabrielle, and Trixxi nipping at our heels!
[Posted in FML issue 1767]