Well, I took both of them to the vet and it looks like Pico has a bit of a
urinary tract or bladder infection. The vet is having the urine sample that
Pico so convieniently (and unexpectedly) volunteered cultured to make sure.
Meanwhile, she's on some atibiotics that she seems to like ok. This is the good
news.
 
The bad news is that the afternoon I brought them home, and the next day, Nitro
started having some diarhea. It wasn't enough to notice at first but by 6:00pm
he suddenly got worse. I don't know if it's that virus that's been going around
in the east but it sure looks like it. He drank a little on his own but didn't
seem to be eating (I isolated him when it was apparent he was sick), and was
looking quite bad. I called the vet only to get an answering service that
couldn't give any answers. They said to call in the morning when the vet was
open. They are supposed to have emergency service there. In any event he really
was looking bad so I got some turkey baby food, mixed in some water to thin it
a bit and fed him using the seringe that i had been given to give Pico her
antibiotic (no needle.) He didn't really like this but didn't spit it out
either and I got half a bottle of the babyfood into him which is what the
insilinoma cases at the shelter get. I also gave him a ittle water with a bit
of Karo's corn syrup the same way. A half hour later he seems more alert. His
last stool wasn't quite as runny although still green and slimey. Needless to
say I'll be up most of the night and at the vet's front door when they open. I
just hope this doesn't get passed to my other two ferrets.
 
All of this is happening at a pretty bad time since I'm supposed to go out of
town over the week of thanksgiving. I'm having no luck finding a boarding
service. I'm going to look into in home care since that worked out well the
last time (a friend did it). Needless to say, if they aren't all healthy by
that time I'll probably have to cancel since I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself
anyway if I was constantly worried about the critters. I'll keep you all
updated.
 
[Posted in FML issue 0631]