>From:    Linda Iroff <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Am I poisoning my furkids (Vit A)
>I do have personal knowledge of a ferret that suffered from Vitamin A
>toxicity when given 3/4 tsp Ferretone daily.  I think 8 in 1 has reduced
>the amount of Vit A in Ferretone since then.  Can anyone confirm that?
 
We have heard of a ferret who got better after dropping the Ferretone but
there was no evidence that it was vitamin A toxicity instead of steatitis
or even some other problem.
 
The Fox box (first edition is what I have in hand right now) talks about
pregnant females consuming 4200 IU vitamin A/kg body weight daily with no
problem from hypervitaminosis A.  That would be 3 teaspoons of ferretone
per day.
 
Who diagnosed the hypervitaminosis A?  And on what clinical signs?
 
Cut back on the veggie and fish oils in general.  Even cutting the
Ferretone with other oils can cause problems with steatitis or yellow fat
liver disease.  It's the polyunsaturated oils that cause the problems in
ferrets showing once again that you can't extrapolate too much from human
to ferret nutritional needs.  Actually the use of oils without the added
Vitamin E that might make it worse.  Just because you read something on
web sites does not make it true.
 
The original questioner might consider less cod liver oil but because it is
a fish oil not because of vitamin A.  We aren't familiar with how much oil
would be in a capsule though but wouldn't think that it is large enough to
be that much trouble.
 
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
[Posted in FML issue 3347]