On January 5th, our vet brought us a Dark eyed white youngster of about 3
months of age.  Our vet was to euthanize this little one because he had a
lower canine tooth that protruded from his mouth and was into his upper
lip.  She was to euthanize this little guy on orders of the pet store she
does work for.  Instead, she brought him to me and told me that she would
pull the tooth when he was about 4 months old.  She has since done that
and he (Frosty) is a healthy 8 month old who weighs it at 4.5 pounds.  He
is a real sweetheart.  He eats really well and appears to be very healthy.
 
Toward the end of January, he developed loose stools and the vet found
coccidia and Giardia in his stool sample.  Needless to say he was put on
the appropriate meds and the stools returned to normal.  Two days after he
was done with the meds, he had the loose stools back .  Again back on the
meds and all the other ferrets in his cage were treated as well.  Now
nobody tested positive for the parasites and none of the others had loose
stools.  After the meds stopped, Frosty again had the runs.  We put him on
a 2 week regimen of amoxy and again everything was fine.  Two days after we
stopped the amoxy the runs were back.  He just finished up a two week stint
of baytril and amoxy.  The vet says that he may have inflammatory bowel
disease and the only thing that will control that is prednisone in a very
small dosage for the rest of his life.  I hate to use this med but it may
be the only thing that will keep this under control.
 
We put him on Tylan at that time and sure enough the runs ceased.  He was
on Tylan for about 4 months and we decided to stop the medication and see
what would happen.  Two weeks later the runs reappeared.  Needless to say,
we again, placed him on the Tylan and he is doing fine.  We now believe
that he will be on this medication the rest of his life.  I believe this
is a better course of action than steroids.  I am not a fan of their use
except in a case of "this is the only choice left" situation.
 
We use 1/8 teaspoon Tylan in a quart of water.  This is in the water bowl
at all times and his 3 cagemates drink the same water.  I was assured that
this was not detrimental to the others.
 
Win and the horde about me
[Posted in FML issue 3225]