>I just bought a bottle the other day and it contained the ingredient
>you described, bismuth subsalicylate.  I compared it to my bottle of
>Pepto Bismol and it also contains bismuth subsalicylate.  If both of
>these are dangerous to ferrets, what else has the necessary coating
>action for ulcers?
 
Pepto has long been safe for the majority of ferrets.  Whether
Kayopectate is will depend on the amount of the ingredient so go by what
your vet says.  Unlike many other animals ferrets often can actually cope
with very low levels of aspirin, too, though there is a risk of bleed-out
so individual trials on it do tend to be restricted to extreme situations
such a blood thinning in a ferret who has thrown thromboses.
 
Of course, it is ALWAYS BEST to NEVER ASSUME THAT ANY OTC MED (over the
counter medication) IS SAFE FOR FERRETS.  That also goes for things like
prescription meds and alternative meds.  MANY things which are safe for
many humans are dangerous for ferrets.  One example is Tylenol.  That
KILLS in low amounts and those few who aren't killed get serious liver
damage.  A number of things kill or damage ferrets although for us they
are okay.
 
Okay: IMPORTANT: Pepto is NOT the best med for coating the stomach of a
ferret.  It is so hated that the stress tends to undo any good effect on
that score.  What the bismuth in it is good for is to boost aid the Amoxi
and Metronidazole combo for treating Helicobacter, BUT even for that the
Amoxi and Baixin combo treatment without Pepto tends to work best.  For
coating the stomach what works great is the prescription medication,
Carafate.  It even comes in a liquid form which most ferrets we've tried
it with don't seem to particularly mind.
 
It's hard to tell from the description what you are seeing, James.  Among
the common types of skin growths which are itchy and seen in ferrets are
mast cell tumors which -- unlike some other animals -- are virtually
always benign in ferrets.  You can try eliminating possible allergens
first or have the vet take a look, and remove or skin scrape (depending
on problem) and biopsy if appropriate.  It may pay to call and ask the
vet for a call-back to see what, if anything, the vet wants tried before
an appointment if you have a close vet-client relationship.
 
Riley needs to go to the vet.  Is the urine also dark or amber?  Are the
stools sort of a light grey?  That combination can be caused by liver
disease.
 
The CA decision: It IS at least one amino acid change (probably actually
a combo of such changees) which alter that genetic allele.  Amino acids
are the building blocks of proteins.
 
I suspect in this case they might be curious if the zebra fish would
prove an unsafe diet if they were released.  or if they might be
competition for the food of fingerlings.  Not having followed the studies
of these fish I don't know but that is very different from the case of
ferrets.  In this situation (altered zebra fish) there is information
missing, whereas for ferrets there is long history (including past CA) of
ferrets in the U.S.  without wild populations, and tons of information:
of ferrets usually becoming prey rather than being predators here, of how
mink (which are present in CA) and other animals out-compete their wild
relatives (the polecats) -- something learned due to the damage from mink
releases in Europe, of ferrets needing exposure at a young age to imprint
on possible prey species, etc.
 
In the case of ferrets it appears to be no more than stubborn insistence
on butt-covering of some people who did really sub-standard research and
never lost their jobs over having performed bad work.  It's like when
CA F&G completely killed all life in at least one lake in an over-done
attempt to control one species, or like when they covered butt because of
housecats being shot by F&G agents who said that they thought they were
mountain lions, or times when they outright LIED -- such as saying that
ferrets were preying on shorebirds in a New England state.  When directly
asked (Yes, I called him and we chatted.) the state biologist whom they
falsely credited with that statement (and who was very angry about it
when I informed him) told me that he personally considered only one F&G
dept.  in the U.S.  to be more incompetent than California's.  I don't
know if since then that other state has perhaps improved so won't mention
the only one he considered worse.
[Posted in FML issue 4354]