Hey All, [benadryl info is at the bottom for those of you who don't want
to listen about my vet visit]
 
I'm happy to report that as of last thursday both my ferrets are up to
date with their vaccines and vet visits until next year.  The best news
is that neither had a sigle reaction!!  Julliet had a distemper booster
and rabbies vax ..  and Romeo had two distemper boosters and a rabies
vax.  They recieved Furvac-D and IMRAB-3.  All went quite well except for
Romeo's last visit.  Unfortunately the vet was in surgery and some lady
(i have no idea what her position was) had to give romeo his shot.  I
knew something was up when she was like i have to take him in the back
because there's no one to hold him and the vets in surgery.  Well I was
like I will hold him, because there was no way I was letting her take my
baby.  I wanted to make sure he was okay.  Unfortunately I forgot to
bring the ferretvite so of course Romey squirmed... I could tell she
hadn't given many vaccines because it took her about 3 minutes and 3 or
4 tries with this thing to get it in him... he came away with at least
3 mini puncture wounds... but no real damage... but other than that
everything was pretty good.  I'm not real fond of the vet, he's okay but
not overly friendly., but it was a good first experience.  But I was
extremely happy to be reaction free!
 
Anyway, the vet "corrected" me about Benadryl dosing for ferrets (for
prevaccination or what ever else.) It should NOT be dosed by the
Milliliter but by the Milligram per Milliliter.  Since that sounds kinda
complicated I will explain.  Here is the proper dosing for ferrets
Diphenhydramine 0.5 - 2 miligrams per kilogram.  (2.2 pounds = 1
kilogram)
 
This came from a vet text that he looked it up in.  With that said you're
probably wondering "Well, how do I know how many milligrams my ferret's
getting if the eye dropper is labled in mLs!?" Well it involves a bit of
math.  You need to look on the back of your bottle or box of benadryl and
look at the ACTIVE INGREDIENT section it should look something like this
 
Children's Benadryl:
Active Ingredient
(in each 5 mL)
Diphenhydramine HCl 12.5 mg ........
Purpose Antihistamine
 
That means that there are 12.5 mg per 5 mL of benadryl.  Sooo, to figure
out how many milligrams of Diphenhydramine are in one mL you would divide
12.5 by 5.  12.5 divided by five is 2.5.  So in this children's benadryl
there are 2.5 mg of Diphenhydramine per mL of fulid.  Now that you know
that, you can dose your ferret.  To make it simple, you could just give 1
mL of benadryl to all of your ferrets.  It won't harm them if they get a
little more than .5-2 mg recommended dose.  It will probably just make
them sleepy (Diphenhydramine is the same drug used in Sleep aids like
Unisom.  So if benadryl doesn't put you to sleep or make you drowsy don't
bother trying sleep aids that use that drug!) If you want to be a bit
more accurate, you can give between 0.3 - 0.5 mL for smaller ferrets and
0.5-1 ml for larger ferrets.  I hope this helps someone.  It sure helped
me out!
 
- Jules
[Posted in FML issue 4684]