Hello everybody
 
I went and rescued a ferret last night, I'm not sure if it was a ferret or
a polecat, the people had found it in their barn.  He looked like he was
dying when I got him, he was stiff, wouldn't take water and seemed to have
trouble breathing.
 
When I got home, I tried to give him some warm Ensure.  He had his teeth
clenched together so I could only put drops of Ensure on his teeth and let
it leak into his mouth.  I thought he swallowed it but then he started
breathing very noisily and died- there was some Ensure coming out of his
nose so it must have got into his lungs.  I feel pretty bad about it but
it's not like I stuck the syringe down his throat and emptied it all at
once.
 
As I said his body was stiff.  He was very emaciated, just skin and bones.
He tried to crawl back into his carrier after I'd tried to feed him and
could not move his back legs and could only barely move his front legs.
After he died, his body went limp and floppy and wasn't stiff anymore.  He
had a dry nose, his eyes were dry (normal) but not fully open.  The
coloured part around his pupils was a medium dark blue with speckles, it
wasn't almost black so you could hardly see the pupil like in the normal
ferret.
 
I'm just wondering whether he could have had some disease that my other
kids could get.  My kids are upstairs and this little guy was just in the
lounge downstairs.  After he died, I put him in a box and left him outside
(I buried him today), I sprayed the house with a spray that is supposed to
kill bacteria and some viruses and then I put all my clothes into the
washing machine and then had a bath and put on fresh clothes before I went
into the kids' room.  The bedding that the little guy had also went into
the washing machine.
 
Please let me know if you have any idea what could've been wrong with the
ferret (apart from being starved).  I'm just sad that I couldn't help him.
He didn't really have any signs of distemper, AD is very unlikely but I
read that they can catch bovine tuberculosis.  Anyway, any help is
appreciated.  BTW, I'm from Wales/ UK and we do have polecats around here.
 
All the best to everybody and their fur kids from
Ulrike
and fur kids Jilly, Jack, Igor, Bella, Tom, Mason, Baby, Dana, Fox & Reno
 
    Missing Angel
    West Wales Ferrets - welfare and rescue
    NFWS area co-ordinator for West Wales
    http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~ferret/
[Posted in FML issue 2556]