There have been a lot of questions about loose stinky bowels in ferrets
lately so I will put in my two cents worth. Sparky is 4. In May, he had
his left adrenal removed. Everything seemed to be going well for him
and he was recuperating nicely. On the other hand, Cocoa was dying of a
tumor in his abdomen. Cocoa died July 2. Sparky slowed down on eating
the end of July/ beginning of August. In August, he finally stopped
eating all kibble except for some ferret treats with Lactobacillus in
them. (Lactobacillus is the good stuff for your digestive tract found
in yogurt.) He had very stinky diarrhea, brown with "birdseed" in it,
and lost half of his body weight. Normal X-rays showed nothing. His
intestinal tract was "a little ropey" according to the vet Medicating
for PBD and then gastric ulcers and continuing on carafate for another
month did not help.

A friend gave me a "recipe" which I modified for Sparky. When I first
started giving it to him, I mixed one Del Monte baby food jar of turkey
or chicken with about 1/4 cup pedialyte, 1 heaping tsp. yogurt, a small
amount of vegetable oil, a small amount of liquid Vitamin B, about 8
drops of ferrettone, about an inch of ferretvite, and a little heavy
cream. He got this recipe 3 -4 times daily. To get him to eat it, I had
to hold him and he would lick it off my finger

After he got his body weight back up to where it should be, I stopped
adding the pedialyte and cream. In November, the diarrhea finally went
away and he started eating kibble again. I really think that for him,
the yogurt was the key to his getting better because it adds good
intestinal flora to help with digestion, and the diarrhea stopped and
he started eating kibble again only after I doubled the amount of
yogurt in the recipe.

Originally I was only using one teaspoon of yogurt in his recipe. After
a couple of months of trying to help him get better, I just felt that I
had to change something. Since the diarrhea just wouldn't go away and
he still wouldn't eat kibble, I started playing around with his
"recipe" by adding and subtracting ingredients. I removed the yogurt
and he almost stopped eating again, so I doubled the amount of yogurt
in the recipe to two heaping teaspoons. It was a couple of weeks after
I upped him to two heaping teaspoons per batch of recipe that he got
over the diarrhea and started eating kibble again. Now kibble is always
in his cage, but once or twice a day, he also gets his recipe.

I get the plain vanilla flavored yogurt that I mix in his recipe from
a health food store so I know that it has lots of good Lactobacillus
in it.

God bless and give each one of you guidance in finding your solutions
to your ferret's problems.

Nancy

[Posted in FML 5504]