I can't remember your name but you said you found some sores on the backs of
your ferrets...  I also sometimes find scabs or dried blood on the backs of
our young healthy ferrets.  They come and go.  I have decided that these are
from the bites of their brothers and sisters.  The sores are almost always
on their backs and usually up towards the neck region (although sometimes in
the middle of the back).  We let ours play really rough with each other,
very rarely intervening.  Especially our boys, they pull each other around
by the neck and the back, and we usually don't stop them because they really
seem like they are having a fabulous time.  If you inspect them after play
time you may find, as I have, little puncture wounds.  They heal very fast
on their own.  Sometimes they begin healing and seem to be almost gone and
then they are reopened during another bite fest.  Our granny, on the other
hand, who is older and frailer and rarely plays hard also gets sores on her
back and on her head too that are larger (about the size of a pencil erasor
or sometimes as big as a dime coin) that get much more inflamed and bloody
red then on the healthy young guys.  I don't believe hers are caused by
bites or irritation.  I'm not sure what causes these sores, but Dr.
Williams says he has seen these before on older girls (Granny is almost 12
yrs) with suspected adrenal disease.  These also clear up like magic.  For
Granny, when I discover a sore (and they pop up overnight) I apply Panalog
cream (from the vet: antibiotic and cortisone) and the sore is gone
sometimes in hours.  For the young boys, on the other hand, I find that the
more conditioned their skin, the less they suffer from bite wounds.  In the
winter when their skin is dry, they tend to get more scabs.  So, whenever I
bath them, I apply a conditioner too.  I use either the spray on Marshall
Farms coat conditioner or the spray on Humiderm (from the vet) and after
shampooing and rinsing them, I pour the conditioner straight from the bottle
over their backs and let them soak for a minute, then rinse.  Then
periodically spray them with the conditioner once a week or so...  Just
yesterday, I noticed Clarence had some little bitty scabs on his back and I
bathed him and conditioned him and already this morning they are almost
gone.  I suppose the sores could be other things too, so maybe advice from a
vet is in order.  But, wanted to share what works for our family.  Also, if
dry skin is a problem, I recommend Petderm (from the vet) it's a gooey Omega
3 oil liquid that you feed them on your finger - they kind of like it.  That
really helped Granny's skin problems when she first came to stay with us.
We started out giving her three pumps per day.  Then two, then two per week,
etc.  Charlene
[Posted in FML issue 1319]