There have been a number of rounds about ferrets and beer/wine/alcohol in
the past few months.  Our local ferret group, Triangle [NC] Ferret Lovers,
already maintains a web site for a FAQ on ferrets and Christmas.  After
conferring with a few people through e-mail, I've gotten the impression that
there be an interest in extending the theme to include New Year's with an
additional FAQ about ferrets and alcohol.  So, I'd like to solicit stories
from ferret folk about what happens when their fuzzies overindulge in
alcohol unintentionally.  (I'm assuming that no one on the FML is foolhearty
enough to get their fuzzbutts intentionally drunk.) Please try to follow
these guidelines for your story:
 
  1)  Describe what sort of alcohol (beer, wine, spirits, etc.) your ferret
      got into.
  2)  What were the immediate effects...even tragic ones--people should be
      aware of any dangers to their ferrets so that they prevent tragedies
      from repeating themselves.
  3)  Were there any residual effects the day after, or long-term?
  4)  What were the costs (monetary and emotional) for you and the fuzzy.
  5)  No polemics please. I DO NOT intend to give anyone ideas of how fun it
      is to get ferrets drunk.  The reality is that ferrets get into all
      sorts of things that aren't good for them.  (My vet now calls one of
      my ferts "cashew boy" from the time he swallowed a whole jumbo
      cashew.) I'd like to present practical advice of what to expect if,
      for example, someone discovers at 3 am that their ferret has raided
      the pantry and "discovered" the sherry.  Vets are welcome to chime in.
  6)  If you post your story to the FML, if possible, CC: it to my e-mail
      account--   [log in to unmask]
 
On another topic--Sukie Crandall asked about the possibility of asking
breeders to track the health of their ferrets for physical problems,
possible genetic defects, early mortality or longevity.  I agree that it
would be useful to try to elucidate some of this information.  Early
mortality and physical defects should be most readily followed, however
longivity may be nearly impossible to track reliably.  To do that, one would
need to track as many members of each litter as possible through multiple
owners sometimes.  The people who read the FML, for instance, would be the
type of owners most likely to cooperate with such a study.  But folks on the
FML are probably better educated about ferrets and may be better able to
spot health problems early and attend to them than other ferret owners.  I'd
wager that ferrets belonging to FMLers probably live longer than other pet
ferrets.  In general, the longer one has to track ferrets, the more
information you lose.  The upshot is that we may never have really accurate
estimates of ferret longevity in every environment.
 
--Jeff Johnston, Chapel Hill, NC
[Posted in FML issue 1482]