Maybe one of the wise and knowledgeable vets can help us out with
this one :)
 
    We recently received in our rescue a large (very large), smelly (REALLY
smelly) intact male sable ferret.  His origins are unknown, he was dropped
off at the house of woman who takes in ferrets, while she wasn't home.  The
previous owners didn't even see fit to offer us his name *sigh*
 
    Anyway, when he was brought to me, I noticed immediately that he had a
very large lump on his left side, about an inch long and half an inch wide,
right below his...errr...armpit and running down the length of his ribs.
It was hard and unmoveable, so we immediately suspected a tumour.  He has
no hair loss, absolutely NO lethargy and handling the area didn't seem to
bother him at all.
 
    We brought him into our wonderful vet, the one who handles all of our
rescues, and had it x-rayed.  The results of the x-ray are, well, somewhat
baffling.
 
    The lump is not, in fact, a lump.  (yeah uh huh, weird huh?) The x-ray
revealed no tumour, no presence of bone cancer, in fact nothing out of the
ordinary except that two of the ferret's ribs are about twice the size as
the rest of his normal healthy ribs.  They are twice as thick.  There
doesn't appear to be any indication that they were broken, as there is no
scar tissue present.  They are simply bigger.  This is why the "lump" is so
hard and noticeable, because it's just real big ribs.
 
    Is it possible that this is a genetic defect (one that causes really
big ribs) or is it indicative of some dreadful disease that we don't know
about?  Frankly, our vet is baffled.  He says he's never seen anything like
it.  He was neutered right after the x-ray (the ferret, NOT the vet) and is
as happy as ever.  We would really appreciate some feedback.  And we would
love some suggestions as to a name.  We WERE calling him Tumour Guy (we
have a sick sense of humour, yes) and now we've resorted to Big Ribs.  If
you can come up with something better...hehehe
 
    Just to add my two cents: I think the FML is wonderful, length-and-
content-wise both.  The little tid-bits of information people toss in is
often really helpful for the rest of us, and I don't mind giggling over
someone's story for a few moments to get to it.  And I also must say that
FMLers are the kindest people I've ever run into...all the sympathy notes
we got after having Fang euthanized were very helpful as we greived.  We
really appreciated them.
 
Sheena
 
PS One of my ferrets (I dunno which) experienced a complication after
his/her distemper vaccine...I found a pool of what appeared to be almost
entirely blood (red liquid) on the playroom floor, about an hour after the
vaccinations.  The vet advised to watch all the ferrets and take "the one"
in immediately if there were breathing and/or other problematic symptoms,
but everyone was absolutely fine and it has happened since.  I don't know if
it was related to the shot but it was a little odd...
 
Ferrets & Friends Club & Rescue E-Mail:  [log in to unmask]
"dedicated to the preservation of the domestic ferret as a
 household pet", a no-kill, not-for-profit ferret facility.
[Posted in FML issue 1321]