I thought I would reproduce the blood panel report that I just got on my
seven year old sable ferret - Myc.  I had it done as a background as he is
getting up there in years.  Other than a mildly enlarged spleen, he seems to
be healthy although at the time of his screen he had a slight fever and was
a bit dehydrated.  I'm providing the entire report and would love comments
about the values and what each of the items mean in the way of a diagnosis.
The only value for Myc that was wildly off from normal cat or dog was the
AMYL and nobody seemed worried about this.  Hope this and other people's
info will help to give all of us a baseline to work from for older animals.
A second visit to the vet to get a spleen aspirate showed immature blood
cells in the spleen which is consistant with the non-lympho abnormal spleen
seen in many older ferrets.
 
     Measured             Dogs              Cats              Ferrets
RBC (M/ul) 10.08         5.5-8.5            5-10              6.77-13.2
Hb  (g/dL) 16.9          12-18              8-15              12-18.5
Hct (%)    42.7          37-55              24-45             36-61
MCV (fL)   42.4          60-74              39-55             42-55.9
MCHC (g/dL)39.6          31-36              30-36             26.9-35
RDW (%)    20.3          12-18              13-17             12-27
Retics(M/ul)^            0-0.18             0-0.18            0.03-1.9
Pltlts(K/uL)298          200-500            150-500           297-910
Sodium(mmol/L) 150                 140-159
Potssm(mmol/L) 4.8                 3.5-5.1
Chloride(")    125                 105-120
ALKP (IU)   64           30-400             10-200
AMYL (IU)   5            500-1500           500-1500
ALT  (IU)   129          8-80               10-120
CHOL (mg/dL)72.5         110-320            65-255
TBILI(mg/dL)0.28         0-0.9              0-0.5
BUN (mg/dL) 29.2         7-27               16-36
PHOS(mg/dL) 4.43         2.5-6.8            3.1-7.5
Creat(mg/dL)0.61         0.5-1.8            0.8-2.4
Gluc (mg/dL)82.4         77-125             76-145
Cal (mg/dL) 9.2          7.9-12             7.8-11.3
TP (g/dL)   7.53         5.2-8.2            5.7-8.9
ALB(g/dL)   3.06         2.7-3.8            2.6-3.9
GLOB(g/dL)  4.47         2.5-4.5            2.8-5.1
 
Best wishes and good health to all of us (and especially fuzzies) for the
new year!
 
Max
[Posted in FML issue 2171]