Greetings Everyone,
 
I am hoping that with the experience and knowledge of the membership of
this list, that I can find some answers to the recent passing of one of
my ferrets.  This is the first of my eight to pass on and my vet and I
have yet to determine what caused his illness.  I'm very fortunate to
have the vet I do, for he's a specialist in exotics, and small animals.
He is extremely knowledgeable about ferrets especially, as they are a
large portion of his patients.  He attends several conferences yearly
for the latest treatments and information on ferret care.  Yet in spite
of that, we're both at a total loss to answer the question of what
killed Nash.  I'm going to describe his symptoms, treatments, and what
the autopsy and biopsies have revealed so far.  If any of you have
experienced similar or have any insight into this, please email me at my
home email at [log in to unmask] with any information you have.  I
have seven survivors at risk if the culprit proves to be contagious.
 
My ferret Nash started with symptoms consistent with a bacterial
infection.  He came down with a bad case of diarrhea, initially with a
slight greenish cast to it, and the consequent dehydration.  The fecal
test came back as negative for any of the traditional culprits such as
ECE, etc.  We put him on supportive care with fluids and canned AD
being force fed to him.  His meds were Pepto, Amoxicillin, Flagyl,
Chlorophenicol, and Centrine.  He stabilized, but was not improving.  He
had a large lump that had developed in his abdomen that looked like it
could be an enlarged lymph node, though it was three times larger than
any other enlarged lymph node my vet had ever seen, and he treats a lot
of ferrets.  We suspected it could by lymphoma, so we added pred in.  48
hours later the lump was gone without a trace, but no real improvement
in Nash.  We considered doing an exploratory, but he was too weak to have
a reasonable chance of surviving it.  So we waited and continued the meds
and supportive care.  We even went so far as to get air purifiers set up
in my home with UV lamps to kill any airborne bacteria and viruses in
hopes it would help.  I can't think of anything we didn't try to help
save his life.
 
Over the next three weeks, he'd rally some only to fall back two steps
more.  I was giving him food, fluids, and meds around the clock on the
supportive care, and he just wasn't absorbing enough from it all.  His
diarrhea never faltered in this, and he'd pass what ever I gave him in
roughly an hour.  As time went on, it looked less and less digested.  We
were giving his Sub-Q fluids twice a day desperately trying to keep his
hydration up.  Last Friday though he just gave up and was suffering, so
I had him put down.  It was simply a matter of time at that point as his
breathing was becoming more and more labored.  He was dazed, weak, and
ready to cross the Rainbow Bridge.
 
I had them do an autopsy, an send biopsies off to try and determine the
cause of his illness.  The results that came back have left us even more
at a loss.  His intestinal walls and stomach were very thin, with ganglia
present.  No thickening of them as we had feared from lymphoma or a
bacterial infection.  The presence of the ganglia there was unsettling
as well, as they're normally absent if he had been suffering under a
bacterial infection.  There we no blockages in the intestines at all, nor
any floaters in the stomach.  There was no evidence of lymphocyte cells
present in the samples as well.  From what we could see, he should have
been absorbing food and water, but it was just running right through him
largely untouched.  They're doing further work on the biopsies to see if
anything more can be determined from them.  The lab had requested
additional samples, but Nash's remains have been cremated so nothing
more can be learned in that direction.
 
If anyone has experienced an illness in a ferret with symptoms like
these, please email me with any information you have.  Feel free to
cross-post or forward this letter to anyone you think might have some
insight.  At this point we don't know if it something he was born with,
as some genetic defect, lymphoma whose evidence in the samples was masked
by the pred he was on, or some new disease.  His final stage symptoms in
retrospect resemble a neuro-muscular disorder that's developed in birds
where the muscles that regulate their stomach and intestines digestion
process stop contracting as they should.  It'd be a long shot that it's
migrated species, but even if it did a cause for it hasn't been
conclusively proven, though a virus is suspected.  The long and short
of it is that we sadly have no idea what killed him.  All I do know is
that I have 7 survivors that miss their brother deeply and I keep praying
that what ever it was isn't contagious.  Thank you all for your time and
patience in reading this.  Hopefully we will find some answers with your
help.
 
Sincerely,
Patrick Judy
Dayton, OH
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[Posted in FML issue 4115]