Hi Everyone,
 
Although I haven't had an older ferret with ece, I did almost loose Stanley
last year to it.
 
He lost over half of his weight and was actually sick for more than 6 weeks.
He too went up and down with his weight and didn't gain back all of his lost
weight until this past December.
 
I fed him my version of duck soup with vitamins and herbals for several
months, once or twice a week after he got over the intitial bought of ece.
I still give it to all my ferrets once a week.
 
If the ferret is otherwise happy and healthy, I would not think about
putting him down.  I would supplement his diet with a high caloric paste
such as nutrical.
 
And just recently Ollie was very sick with the flu.  He lost weight, had
swollen tonsils and was dehydrated.  the worse part was his diarrhea.  It
was a dark green tarry looking stool, frequent and in small amounts.  This
has gone on for a month.  When his stools finally returned to normal, he was
still trying to void frequently (every 5 feet or so) and passing nothing but
mucous.  The mucous is produced as a reaction to the illness and it
irritates the intestinal lining, setting up a viscous circle.  My ususal
treatments did not work.  The vet gave me a medicine call Endosorb.  It
contains the active ingrediants in kaopectate, pepto, has activated charcoal
and anti-spasmodics.  It has cleared up the mucous.
 
I think this might be good for ece cases since one of the problems with them
is mucous production.  Check with your vets.  It has a long shelf life.
 
Mags and the Missouri Mustiled Maniacs
[Posted in FML issue 1838]