As a shelter owner, my wife and I are constantly faced with the problem of
switching ferrets over to different foods.  Many come in that were raised on
the cheapest of grocery store cat foods.  More than a few that were fed
nothing but vegetables and table scraps.
 
When we know what food they were on we nearly always (except for the
obviously potentially harmful foods) start them out on their original
foods.  (Getting suffled off to a shelter is stressful enough for these
guys at first.) We add just a little of the shelter mixture (Excel and
Science Diet - both kitten formulas).  As the days go by we increase the
amount of the shelter mixture a litter each refill, until gradually they
are on the shelter mixture.  We usually have no problems with diarrhea.
At the most a day or so of somewhat softened stools.
 
Some of our biggest problems are with ferrets that are found, or turned into
one of the Humane Society Shelter then turned over to us.  We don't know
what they were fed.  We usually offer a wide variety of everytype of food we
can think of and see which they will eat.  They often won't.  Invariably
these are the ones that will come down with the Green Diarrhea.  Then we're
off on a regime of Kaopectate, Amoxicillin (just in case), Duck Soup, and
lots and lots of water.  This goes on every 2-3 hours moring and night until
we start getting more normal stools and they are eating on their own.  The
medications may continue for up to a month if it were a prolonged bout, just
to be on the safe side.
 
I'm sure that there is a disease which causes ECE.  We've been fortunate
here not to have encountered it as far as we can tell.  The reason I say "As
far as we can tell" is that the symptoms sound exactly the same as what we
enounter from stress and from changes in diet - watery, dark to light green
stools, often with vomitting and listlessness.  The reason I don't think
we've had ECE is that none of the others, shelter or non-shelter guys in the
house have gotten it.
 
It's been our experience that ferrets can suffer from stress very readily:
boarding at a strange place; above normal environmental temperatures, ferret
shows; even different water (much like some humans) can cause upset stomachs
and diarrhea.
 
My personal opinion (worth exactly what you paid for it - maybe less) is
that a lot of the "ECE" (not all, by any stretch of the imagination) is not
due to an ECE organism, but is due to stress.  Treatment is the same
regardless - prompt hydration, diarrhea medicine, trip to the vet,
Amoxicillin to prevent secondary infections, Duck Soup with syringe feeding
if necessary, maybe some Carafate to prevent ulcer formation, and lots and
lots of love and attention.  Above all ACT, DON'T PANIC.  You and your
ferret don't need the extra stress of you worring that it does have ECE.
 
You might ask ferret owning friends and neighbors if their ferrets have had
similar symptoms recently.  It it seems widespread with no obvious common
stress factors, it may be ECE.  Then, isolate, sterilize the cages and
bedding with a bleach solution after the ferret has recovered and refrain
from mixing your ferrets with others that have not had it.  If your's seem
to be the only one(s) to come down with it, and you haven't been visiting
some far off ferret show or shelter or breeder in the past couple of weeks,
and you can pinpoint a recent stress situation (new ferret, new food, new
surroundings, etc,) chances are it's stress related and not ECE.
 
Dick B. - not a vet
[Posted in FML issue 1467]