I guess this is as good a time as any to post.  I've been waiting a little
while to let everyone know of my little Munchkin's tragedy.  Gary's ferret
eating socks reminds me of my little darling.  She loved to eat socks and
fabric of anykind.  Of course I would get it away from her whenever I caught
her with something, but there were times she chewed big holes in things that
I didn't even know she had gotten a hold of.  She was tricky and smart and
could get into a huge variety of forbidden places before I could stop her.
I don't think sock eating is a sign of anything missing in her diet but
perhaps just a need to chew and in the process she swallows the stuff too.
 
Anyway, this precious little gal of mine died last Sunday from a ruptured
bowel.  I'm just shaking talking about it.  She seened a little puny last
week and Tuesday and I noticed a little runny stool in her cage.  I started
her on pedilyte and duck soup and kept a close eye on her.  The next day she
was vomiting.  Again not real aggressively so I isolated her from the other
three.  Kept a close eye on her and continued the duck soup and the
pedilyte.  At this point she seemed to be doing exactly what my boy Mickey
did when he got the ece virus.  There was no green stools for a couple of
days with him and so since I didn't see green stools with her and it was
only a day and a half since she began showing symptions, I figured the green
stools and grainy stools would show up soon and that she had the virus.  She
had stopped vomiting pretty quick after she began and was keeping food down.
By thursday morn when I tried to give her a feeding she clamped her mouth
shut and I couldn't open it at all.  I took her to the vet right away.  By
that time she was dehydrated even though I had gotten fluid in her the night
before.  Her body temp was very low as well.  She was pretty weak and the
need to rehydrate her and warm her up seemed at the time the most important
things to do.  So I left her with the vet and they started IV fluids and
took some blood and tried to Xray her but couldn't get a good picture.  They
started her on flagyl.  They got her temp up to 101F and got her hydrated
and by Sat.  she was taking some duck soup from the bottle that I brought up
for her and moving around a little and using the little box.  The vet let me
take her home on Sat.  afternoon.  Her blood work revealed some problems
with her ability to absorb protein.  They gave her something called
hebastarch I think, through the IV to help with that problem.  We were just
treating symptoms at this point and the vet said she was too weak to survive
surgery to biopsy her intestine to look for the cause of the problem.
 
By sunday Morn she wouldn't take food or anything by mouth from me and
seemed real weak again.  I called the vet and in the two minutes it took me
to make the call, she died.  We immediately brought her up to the vet and
the narcropsy revealed a ruptured intestine.  The cause was a piece of
rubber from a pair of swimming goggles she chewed up almost 6 weeks ago!  I
thought I got all the pieces from her, but I was wrong.  Our ferret hotline
and Bob Church suggested checking for a blockage, but by the time she was
showing the clamping of her mouth and I got her to the vet, the damage it
seems was already done.  Hence the drop in body temp.  I feel so horrible
that she went through that and that I didn't better ferret proof the areas
she was constantly sneaking into.  I miss her deeply, she was my shower
buddy and my little ferret angel, I guess now she really is a ferret angel.
 
Thanks to Bobby at the hotline for your support and Bob C. for all of your
kind words through this terrible time.  You can bet that I am being
extremely aware of where my little guys are when they are up in the regular
part of the house.  I will probably think "blockage" now whenever any of
them shows any suspicious symptoms.  Please hug your fuzzies for me and
watch what they get into.  It could save their lives.
 
Sadly,
 
Julie (mom)
Poncho (where's munchkin?)
Mickey
Raz (aka wild thing)
[Posted in FML issue 2332]