Dear Ferret Folks-
 
It's always good to review.  Intestinal blockages are one of the big
causes of premature death for ferrets.  I Googled "symptoms of intestinal
blockages in ferrets" and came up with a HUGE number of articles and
Faqs.  Most fatal intestinal blockages seem to come under the category
of "death by misadventure." A ferrets eats a chunk of eraser, or takes
a bite out of a rubber insole, and cannot pass the mass.  Sometimes the
ferret grooms and grooms until he winds up with a plug of fur in his
belly that he cannot pass.  This is likeliest to happen when he is
shedding.
 
And then, there are the injuries and deaths due to the ingestion of dried
fruit chips, dehydrated vegetables, nut chunks, and jerkies made from
really inferior grades of meat that the ferret simply cannot digest.  And
these deaths aren't accidental, really, we feed these treats and staple
kibbled diets to our fuzzies in the belief that "Well, the bag says it's
for ferrets, so it must be OK, right?  Wrong.  It's a wrong we're trying
to right through education and a letter writing campaign to the
manufacturers and retailers of ferret foods.
 
I've written a lot over the last few days about *why* it's a bad idea
to feed certain categories of food to our ferrets.  I've talked about
blockages, but I haven't really examined what they are in depth, how
to recognize the symptoms of a blockage.  It's important information.
If you follow this URL you will come to a *very* nice article on the
subject.  I am grateful to the author, Mary R. Shefferman, for it, and
would like to point out that it *is* copyrighted material.  Please treat
it, and by extension the author, with respect.
http://www.ferretnews.com/issues/ferret-news-65.html
 
Alexandra in MA
Communications Coordinator
International Ferret Congress
[Posted in FML issue 5131]