Hi All! This is Beth with the Ferret Cubby Shelter/Rescue in Utah. We
have been experiencing what appears to be a variation of ECE. The
symptoms are neon green poop, which turns to a rust color, bird seed
or small curd cottage cheese in appearance. It is accompanied with
dehydration, lack of energy and the ferrets will not eat. It comes on
quickly, poop first, quickly followed by dehydration. We have had two
maybe three cases, for sure. They have all been different severity in
each ferret. The ferrets it has been affecting have been 5-7 years of
age and we may have had it in a couple of the younger ferrets, but it
didn't even slow them down and they went through the stages much
quicker.

I still have one who is recuperating, he has not really wanted to go
back to solid foods, but he is hydrated and doing fine. If anyone is
having similar issues, feel free to contact us and we will tell you
what we found that is helping them through this here.

Thank goodness it does not seem to be severe. We did lose two ferrets
during this time, but necropsy showed one was a severe case of cancer
and the other was a odd and had to get over kidney infection. We are
not seeing any deaths related to this.

Also, I am curious if anyone else has experienced this? We do
quarantine all new arrivals and we saw no signs of issues with any
of the new ferrets.

Beth

[Posted in FML 5641]