Hi All - Question - is the majority of this list PMS-ing??  In all the
years I've been here, this is probably the worst juvenile bickering I've
ever seen.  Get a life, boys and girls!  There are things that are said
every day that offends someone.  That's what the delete key is for.  But to
put in my 2 shekels, as a result of all this flopclop, I finally subscribed
to MF and can't wait - asked to start with the infamous #24.
 
Ah, that felt good, now on to important stuff - ferrets.
 
Last week I received a phone call from someone from a kibbutz children's
zoo, referred from one of the vets that was in on one of my ferret
lectures.  Vet thought is was mites or something.  Yep, no hair on tail,
belly and back.  Slightly swollen vulva.  Ah, ha I thought - Israel's first
case of adrenal.  Got our zoo vet to agree to check the little sweetie out,
and she was a doll despite her condition.  We arranged to have several vets
observe the surgery, as this is something no one has seen.  She was brought
in and we felt a large mass.  OK, pre-op meds, gas and we opened her up.
Found a huge (golfball size) ovarian cyst, ruptured.  Peritonitus.  One
kidney only, other was shrunken to the size of a pea.  The little girl was
in bad shape and unfortunately stopped breathing just as we were putting in
the final stitches.  Needless to say, I was heartbroken, as had we gotten
her even a few weeks ago, she might have made it.
 
I haven't really heard anything about ovarian cysts on FML, much about
adrenal problems.  I imagine that this is because most of the ferrets in
the US/Canada are fixed and most in Israel or not.  Can anyone give me a
breakdown on symptoms for ovarian cysts?  Are they in fact the same as
adrenal?  We did a post mortum and never did find the adrenals or the other
ovary for that matter.  But then the whole gut area was full of infection.
My heart bleeds for that poor little girl, and when the people show up to
collect her cage, I am going to have a long talk with them, including
showing them the tumor and a rather graphic description of what she went
through.
 
On a happier note - the zoo matriarch had 8 kits 6 weeks ago, all doing
well, all have homes waiting and all will go with specific instructions
on care and feeding.  Thanks to Dick Bossart's fantastic Ferret Manual
(in Hebrew or English), these fuzzies will have owners that know just what
they are getting into and just what to look for when problems start!
 
From this hold over hippy - Peace!  Bev from the Jerusalem Zoo
[Posted in FML issue 2788]