In regards, to vet etiquette, I can't say for sure about consultations.
I *can* say however that my very experienced (20+ years working with
fuzzies) vet offers phone consultations (for a very small fee), so I
know it *is* done. I think whatever you need to do to keep your fuzzy
comfortable and happy is acceptable, personally. If you *know* the vets
that live closer to you are not the best that your fuzzies can see,
then I think it is perfectly acceptable for you to ask them to consult
with a more experienced vet. If they are not comfortable with this (or
their egos will not allow it), then perhaps you can get a glucose meter
for home testing so you can avoid having to travel far to see the
better vet often. I wish you and your stinky mink the best!

Also, wanted to add to the conversations I saw recently here on ferrets
and kennel cough. There are at least two confirmed cases of kennel
cough in ferrets in gainesville, florida, currently. One of them is 3
of my fuzzies, one of them is the fuzzies that belong to one of the
ladies working in my vet's office. The strange thing about the kennel
cough we have going around here is that the dogs and fuzzies that are
afflicted are showing mostly normal CBC's. I am not sure if this is
normal for bordetella infections, but I would have expected *something*
to show up on the blood tests. Only one of my fuzzies developed an
abnormal CBC, but it took about 4 months of him having the cough for
it show up. Test after test showed nothing for a while, and we had to
assume it was allergies to our old apartment or pollen (though benadryl
was only marginally helping their symptoms). However, the lady who
works for the vet had blood cultures done on her fuzzies, and sure
enough, they have a bordetella species that is resistant to many
commonly used, broad-spectrum antibiotics (which is why numerous
rounds of normal stuff weren't working on mine for my fuzzies the past
few months). Only gentamycin and chloramphenicol have worked on the
cultured bacteria. We're using the gentamycin on the fuzzies in
gainesville since it's the lesser of two evils, and my vet said she's
had better experience with it and fuzzies over the past couple of
decades when it must be utilized.

So, if any of you have fuzzies that have terrible, harsh coughs or
runny noses and eyes/violent sneezing (one of our fuzzies was sneezing
so badly that he would scream at the same time and he gave himself
hemorrhoid's...poor guy) and all other tests are normal, you may
consider asking your vet for a blood culture to rule out kennel cough.
It appears it is not always as rare in fuzzies as we would think. Even
my vet was shocked. This is only the second time she has seen it in all
of the time she has been treating fuzzies (and she sees over 1500 a
year!...she's the largest practice in the southeast as far as I know).
My fuzzies aren't even exposed to dogs, but it appears that Chewy
brought it home from Petco in January =(.

Hoping everyone's fuzzies are happy and healthy!

Rachael

[Posted in FML 5655]