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Sorry to hear about your ferret's unexpected death.  The autopsy showed
a dilated heart.  This is called dilated cardiomyopathy, and it is very
common in older ferrets.  Thus in a ferret that is almost 8 years old,
it is not surprising that she had dilated cardiomyopathy.  Dilated
cardiomyopathy leads to congestive heart failure.  Congestive heart
failure leads to fluid retention and fluid and blood in the lungs.  The
autopsy also showed blood in her lungs.  Therefore the cause of death
was congestive heart failure from the dilated cardiomyopathy.  The real
question is why did she go down hill so fast after the implant.  Perhaps
it was the stress of going to the vet and receiving the injection that
caused her to decompensate so quickly.
 
Now to clear up some of the confusion about the implants, Ferretonin (the
ferret implant) contains 5.4 mg of melatonin, which is the exact same
amount as the male mink implant.
 
When they did toxicity studies for FDA approval, they gave mink kits
78.2 mg, which worked out to be roughly 80 mg/kg for the male kits and
124 mg/kg for the female kits.  They were 8-10 weeks old, and they
received 14.5 times the amonut of melatonin that is in the ferret
melatonin implant.
 
When they did the adults, they gave them 100 mg of melatonin.  There was
no sign of toxicity or adverse reaction in these studies, except the male
kits gained an average of 324 grams more than the control group.  There
was also no toxicity on histopath, which included the heart.  In the
field studies, more than 31,000 mink were implanted with no signs of
toxicity or adverse reactions.  In a study conducted in New Zealand,
ferrets were given 8 mg melatonin implants, and some received a second
implant the following year.  No adverse reactions reactions during this
16 month long ferret study.
 
Hope that answers some of your questions,
Jerry Murray, DVM
 
-- Sukie (not a vet)
Ferret Health List co-moderator
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FHL Archives fan
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org
International Ferret Congress advisor
http://www.ferretcongress.org
[Posted in FML issue 5037]