Q: "Bob!  I have a very sick little girl who I will have to handfeed.  I
have a problem squirting duck soup down her throat.  How do you do it?"
 
A: That's a mite personal, isn't it?  You can email me later for
"details"...Oh, how do you force liquids.  Never mind....
 
I will probably come into come confict with people on this, but I NEVER
force liquid food down ferret's throats.  If I think a ferret is so ill and
dehydrated that they need fluid, I am off to the vet for an inspection.
If, with the vet's approval, fluids need to be given, I have the vet (or
myself with the vet's knowledge) give them sub-q.  This is just an OPINION,
but I would never do to an animal what I would never let happen to me and
that includes ethical medical treatment.
 
Here's the problem.  Ferrets, like all animals, have an instinctual need to
eat enough to maintain metabolic needs and drink enough to maintain body
fluids.  When they stop eating or drinking, it means there is something
wrong.  Now I consider myself to be about as smart as most people, so I
realize the advantage the vet has over me is precise training, diagnostic
equipment, in depth experience and objectivity.  They have the tools and
objectivity to illuminate the problem.  I do not.  Therefore, not only
can't I diagnose over the internet, BUT, I can't even do an adequate job of
it with my own ferrets.  I'm not embarrassed.  Vets can't do my job either.
 
This is a TRUE story.  A person emailed me, saying their ferret wouldn't
eat.  I immediately said they should do NOTHING until they saw a vet, which
they should do immediately.  Well, this person also asked several other
people (in a sort of shotgun approach) for ferret advice, and several
suggested feeding the ferret duck soup with a syringe.  Two things
happened.  First, the ferret had a bacterial infection in the intestines
and the large amount of nutrients DID NOT DO THE FERRET GOOD!  Second, the
ferret was weak and aspirated some of the soup and developed a very nasty
pneumonia.  The ferret died several days later, when sub-q fluids and
antibiotic therapy might have saved its life.  Life is hard, and you learn
as you live.
 
The point is the ferret knew what to do.  You don't feed nasty little
bacteria; you starve them, encase them in sticky mucus and shoot them out
the back door as fast as you can before they eat through the intestinal
lining.  The ferret didn't NEED nutrients; it had a storehouse of them in
it's body and could have gone without eating for several days.  Somehow, in
all the drug company hype, we have forgotten the best way to get over an
intestinal infection is simply getting a fever and a good case of the runs.
The problem with the runs is it washes out a lot of water and electrolytes,
and that can kill a ferret if it is weak, or it goes on too long.  Ferrets
with the runs don't die of starvation; they die of dehydration and
electrolyte imbalance.  A little lactated ringers given just under the
skin, maybe some mild antibioltics, and the problem is solved.  The ferret
can get on with ruining your carpet, and in a day or so most will start
wanting to eat.
 
But not all.  Some will have to be hand-fed and here is where I will come
into conflict again with some people.  I don't give my ferrets duck soup.
I give some feline A&D when I have it, but mostly I just give them Gerber's
chicken baby food straight out of the jar.  Its pasty, it sticks well to
your finger and they lick it off.  If I think they need calories, I grind
up some kibble and mix it in, or maybe a little nutrical.  I nuke it in the
microwave, stir it with my finger so I know they won't burn their little
pink tongues and then I finger feed them.  When, on the rare occasion I use
a syringe, it is to dispense the stuff to the tip of the ferret's tongue;
I NEVER squirt the stuff inside the mouth where it could be accidently
inhaled.  MY problem has never been getting a ferret to eat, BUT weaning
them off the finger afterwards.  They REALLY like being hand fed.
 
This post is really going to get a lot of people angry for implying duck
soup is no better than Gerber's baby food.  Most versions have stuff in it
that are marginally effective, or have compounds with could exacerbate a
problem rather than cure one.  I have NO idea what some of those things do
inside a sick ferret, how they interact, or even if they do anything at
all.  Most duck soup recipes appear to be one of those "hey, I heard this
can help...let's add some" brews that have little or no proven merit,
absolutely no medical testing for effectiveness, and no consideration of
the medical consequences.  See, there's the thing.  If you give duck soup
and the ferret recovers, you consider duck soup a miracle cure.  BUT, if
the ferret dies while eating duck soup, then you have done all that you
could have done and nothing would have done any difference.  This is a
classic tautology; if they die eating suck soup, they were too sick to
survive, and if they survive eating duck soup, the duck soup cured them.
Factual evidence would be giving one group of ill fererts duck soup and
another baby food, then checking things like loss of weight, length of
illness, and recovery and survival rates.  But damn!  That's medical
experimentation on ferrets.
 
Bob C and 16 Mo' Finger Feeders
[Posted in FML issue 3026]