The question is: can molting (or pollen season, or some other annual
happening) cause recurring diarrhea?
 
Lester is a 4 or 5 year old male who has been with us for three spring
seasons.  When we adopted him in January of 1995 he developed what we
thought was stress diarrhea brought on by the shock of a new home with other
ferrets.  It seemed to drag on for 3 months.  He would have diarrhea for a
couple of days, clear up for four or five days and then repeat the cycle.
The vet we were with at the time tried hard to find out what was going on
but nothing conclusive came of it.  It eventually cleared up around May 1995
which may or may not have had anything to do with the treatment (amoxy).
 
Last year the same thing happened for a couple of months between about
February and April.  A day of diarrhea followed by several days normal.
 
Again this year we are seeing the same thing.  Its not a _frequent_
diarrhea.  Its just two or three extremely watery bowel movements at the
normal several hours apart.  The color is yellow and there is fur in the
stool.  He is molting heavily (has been since February).  After two or three
loose stools he goes several days with normal bowel movements.  He's eating
and drinking like a horse and playing vigorously.  The body mass has
decreased from a very chubby 1440 grm.  in December to 1150 grm.  now but he
still has good muscle mass.  (His weight has held pretty steady at 1150 grm.
for the last month.)
 
The others molt and loose weight to varying degrees but don't seem to get
the diarrhea with it.
[Posted in FML issue 1934]