In Issue 25 of the Ferret Health List Bruce Williams discusses claw
diseases
 
 From: "Dr. Bruce Williams"
 Subject: Re: Nail Fungus?
 
Dear XXXXXXX:
 
Thanks for the patience on this one.  I did a bit of research in claw
diseases, and although there is nothing specific on ferrets, I did get
a good education on the types of diseases that can affect the claws.
 
Claw disease is not a common thing - in specialty dermatology practices,
they are less than 2% of cases seen in dogs and cats.
 
Of course, this is not an easy one to diagnose at this point.  However, a
couple of facts and pointed questions may help to point us in a direction.
 
I assume from your post that all of the nails are affected.  Is this
correct?  This helps to eliminate some causes - trauma, spontaneous
bacterial infection arising from a cracked nail, neoplasia, and common
fungal infection.  These affect one to two claws, or perhaps all of the
claws on one foot, but not all of the claws.
 
We can't rule out all fungal or bacterial infections, but for them to
affect all fo the nails, there needs to be a predisposing cause, such
as immunosuppression or diabetes.  That would be pretty rare.
 
There are some miscellaneous causes of deformed, crumbly claws that
probably also should be considered.  (The doctor word for this is
onychodystrophy, XXXXXXX!)
 
Senile change - we see this in older dogs and cats - degenerative
changes of the germinal epithelium at the base or perhaps digestive
imbalances associated with age and subsequent nutritional defects may
contribute to this.
 
Previous inflammatory disease that has damaged the germinal epithelium -
severe pododermatitis or even autoimmune disease such as pemphigus can do
this.
 
There are some specific syndromes in dogs which result in this as well,
which are suspected to have a genetic basis (Rhodesian ridgeback,
dachshunds) - perhaps something like this is going on - it would be nice
to see some other the siblings, but as a rescue, we probably wont.
 
Treatments of the non-bacterial, non-fungal disease is generally
symptomatic - regular clipping to prevent cracking, and some people have
even given gelatin tablets, but success is at best wildly anecdotal.
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce H. Williams, DVM
 
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[Posted in FML issue 3344]