Tis the season for heatstroke.  Had a ferret come into the emergency clinic
last night for monitoring.  The ferret presented at his regular clinic in
sezures, body temp over 112 (that's as high as the mercury thermometer
goes), producing bloody poops initially, then brownish mucoid ones.  They
tried to get a catheter into the ferret so they could give him drugs and
fluids, but every vein they hit blew, so they ended up giving the ferret
valium rectally to try to control his seizures.  When he got to us at about
6:30, he was quite out of it, but at least his body temp was normal.  He
had nasty bruises where they tried to catheterize him and where they gave
him SQ fluids.  He ate a little bit of gruel for me and drank a little
bit of water, and then at about 9 he had a short, mild seizure.  I tried
feeding him again at about 9:45, and his teeth were clenched and he was
refusing to swallow.  I gave him his injections, and at about 11 he had
another seizure requiring more valium in the butt.  I noticed that where
I had given him his injections earlier, he had some nasty bruises, so we
started him on vitamin k1 in an effort to stave of the DIC he may have
been going into.  His body temp was flucuating between 101.2 and 102.4.
 
This poor little ferret was living outside in the heat of SC--the owners
apparently didn't know any better.  Heat stroke can cause serious damage,
if not death.  A body temp over 106 (much less over 112) can cause brain
damage, it can cause the body to stop being able to regulate its own temp
normally which means that the affected animal has a greater chance of
having another heat related problem in the future.  Heat stroke can cause
the body to go into DIC, disseminated intravascular coagulation, which is
basically how rat poison kills rats (and other animals)--they bleed to
death internally.  I did not see any petechiations (looks sort of like a
rash) on this ferret's gums or inguinal (between his back legs) area, but
since he was having such bruising at the sites of injections, we started
him on vit K to be on the safe side.  The sad thing is, the temp only got
to about 80 yesterday, but if the ferret had no shade or water....I don't
know, didn't ask as the damage was done.  The Dr did explain to the owners
(after asking me -- he did not know this) that a ferret has no sweat glands
and therefore cannot cool off like a person can, and that ferrets need to
live indoors where it is cooler.  The people were amazed at that little
tidbit of info.
 
So, there it is.  Keep your ferrets cool.  I have no idea if this ferret
lived thru the night or not--he was still hanging on at 1 this morning
when I left.
[Posted in FML issue 3428]