Well, my little Wiggly is doing great.  We have moved to a new house and
he now has a whole room of his own to play in, full of PVC pipe tunnels,
old shoes (he has a SERIOUS shoe fetish), balls & rattles.  He is SO much
happier now, especially when we give him run of the house he bounces and
dooks all over, which he never used to do when he was in the cage and
had maybe a couple hours playtime each day.  We were pretty worried a
while back - he had a couple of days where he just turned lethargic, no
energy - he would come out of his bed to greet us, get a few steps then
collapse.  So off to the vet, who said he might have a virus, or could be
insulanoma.  She took a blood test (glau-something for blood sugar) (and
couldnt' get a vein, so to my horror she clipped a claw too short to get
the sample - I don't know who was more upset, me or Wiggly), then we had
to go back in the next day for a second test.  The second test was done
by someone else who mercifully managed to get a vein.  The first test
came up abnormally low, but the second was almost back to normal, despite
the fact that Wiggly hadn't eaten anything.  So the verdict?  "We don't
really know, give him these anti-biotics in case its a virus, and if it
happens again, come back".  Oh good.  Well, anyways, the anti-biotics
picked him right back up, so maybe he just had the flu or something.
 
Well, to my questions.  Over the last month or so, Wiggly has started
"marking" everything in the house he can get to, by which I mean he
leaves a little trail of somthing liquid (maybe urine?) by rubbing over
everything.  He never used to do this at the old place - is this a normal
ferret behaviour, or is he incontinent, or is something else maybe wrong?
I don't think he's desexed (can you tell by looking?), is he just
announcing his availability to females?
 
Also, in regard to desexing - we are thinking about getting a playmate
for Wiggly, but we don't want an unexpected batch of little ferrets.  If
we got another undesexed male, will they fight?  Our vet says they don't
recommend desexing ferrets, cause there is a risk the anasthetic will
kill them cause they're so small, but I've called a couple of other vets
who do desex ferrets, who say there is no problem with doing it.  What's
the verdict there?  I've also asked about desexing female ferrets as
I've read that if they go on heat they don't come back out without an
injection and it can kill them.  All the vets I have spoken with about
this give me a funny look (or funny tone of voice) and say "umm..
I've never heard of that." I don't think we really have a lot of
ferret-knowledgable vets around my area.  Is it easier to desex a male
or female?
 
Any info on the above would be appreciated!
 
-Erica & Wiggly
[Posted in FML issue 3873]