If you have access to a research library, check out the Dec.  issue of the
journal, Veterinary Medicine.  It has a special section on ferret medicine.
There is one article by James Morissey (and others) on methods of examining
and testing ferrets.  Then there are two articles by Judith Bell.  One
focuses on diet.  I especially enjoyed this as it explained in detail why
grocery store corn-based diets are innapropriate for ferrets, and also had
some other interesting information.  She says, "Sometimes ferrets develop a
taste for unusual treats such as banana and raisins." She must be spying on
me, because mine LIVE for bananas and raisins.  Well, anyway, I digress.
The other article was on endocrine disorders or ferrets.  There's a short,
but nifty explanation of ferret estrous that I enjoyed.  Isn't Judith Bell
the Marshall Farms doc?  Or former Marshall Farms doc?
 
Reading those articles stimulated a vet-like question: In the diet article,
Dr. Bell says that cats cannot convert B-carotene to Vitamin A, but ferrets
can.  This reminded me that someone once told me that ferrets have no
alcohol dehydrogenase, and that's why alcohol is dangerous to them.  Is that
true?  Do ferrets have alcohol dehydrogenase?  (Alcohol dehydrogenase
converts ethanol to acetaldehyde--which helps give you that headache, yeah
you know the one...)
 
Oh!  Really cute story.  I have a nephew who is 2.5 years old.  He played
with my very gentle ferret, Sebastian, on Christmas.  Sebastian was in fine
form and danced a very good wardance for him.  When the nephew left with his
parents, he said his round of goodbyes (no kisses, no hugs, please :).  He
said "Goodbye Aunt Cafrin, Goodbye Uncle Brent, Goodbye Uncle Ca-lark..."
etc.  Then he paused and said, "Goodbye Uncle Sebashun." I thought that was
too cute.
 
-Catherine
Sebastian "Say, 'Uncle!'  Bahahaha!"
Mortimer "Do you have to eat a carrot to have B-carrot-ene?"
Mithril "I got alcohol dehydrogenase and plenty of it!  Gimme a swig o'
that!"
[Posted in FML issue 1800]