my life is falling apart. let me tell you the story of my last few weeks.
 
i was in a pet store, looking at the baby ferrets. There was an absolutely
beautiful male silver mitt kit. so even though i'd told myself that my next
ferret would be from a shelter, the next day i went back and bought Ulysses. I
brought him home to my room where i live with my roommate and my three healthy
ferrets, who range in age from 1 to 3 years. as with my other ferret
introductions, they all got along beautifully right from the start. Ulysses was
playful, but a little bitey, which i was going to work on. a few days later, i
started to notice that he seemed to be sleeping more. i hadn't seen him eating
much, and also he wasn't interested in the Petromalt I tried to give him, which
he had loved previously, so i was worried and went out and got some Sustacal to
supplement his food with. For a day or so i forcefed him some Sustacal every
few hours. he was then much more active and playful and i noticed him eating
his food more often, so i stopped giving him the sustacal. i decided that
either the stress of moving to a new home or the change in food (the pet store
was giving him ferret food, i gave him Iams Kitten) had disrupted his appetite,
yet it was now back to normal. throughout all this, there had been some soft
stools in the litterbox, yet i didn't know which ferret they were from, and
besides, this happens every now and then when everyone's healthy. yesterday
morning i woke up, couldn't find Ulysses, and my roommate and i finally found
him dead inside the dryer tube he'd been sleeping in. needless to say, this was
a traumatic experience. my roommate called and talked to the petstore, where
I'd bought Ulysses less than two weeks before. we brought them the ferret's
body, and they decided that they had no idea why he had died, and they were
going to send him to some university to be autopsied. they had asked if he had
bloody stools, and we said no. (i had just cleaned all the litterboxes, and
hadn't seen any blood.)
 
then i started to worry about the health of my other three ferrets. i decided
that Baby had been less active than usual the past few days, and seemed
thinner. he was also doing something weird with his mouth, like smacking his
lips or something. So this morning i brought all three ferrets to the vet. when
i got to the vet's office, i noticed blood smeared on the inside of the travel
cage. this was the first blood i'd seen. the vet said that Baby was dehydrated
and felt too thin. when he took his temperature rectally, the thermometer came
out bloody. his temperature was also too low. the vet decided that it was
probably something viral. he said that they could hospitalize him, and would
inject him with fluids and antibiotics twice a day, and put a hot water bottle
in the cage with him to keep his temperature up. however, he said that the
prognosis was not good, but i chose to admit him anyway. he was also going to
do a blood workup. just in case it was canine distemper, i revaccinated my two
healthy ferrets, even though it hasn't been a whole year since their last
vaccinations.
then i went home and disinfected everything in my room with bleach, and i'm
keeping a very close eye on my two currently healthy ferrets.
 
Basically, my question is whether anyone knows what might be causing this
diarrhea with a bloody stool.
and is there any treatment other than just keeping them hydrated and guarding
against secondary infections?
the vet agreed that Ulysses was probably sick when i got him, and he then
infected Caelan.
 
i'm also wondering about the petstore's role in all this. is there an implicit
guarantee that i'm buying a healthy animal? should they have to pay for
Caelan's vet bills if he was infected by a ferret that was already sick at the
time i purchased him?
 
please give me any advice you can!  i plan to forcefeed Celeste and Damien lots
of Pedialyte to keep them hydrated. i'm also going to give them daily
supplements of Nutrical.
 
is there anything else i should be doing??
 
sorry this is so long, i'm just hoping someone can give me advice or a glimmer
of hope.
 
i'll keep you updated,
 
jill
 
(603-643-8709) feel free to call anytime day or night if you have anything at
all to say...
[Posted in FML issue 1104]