We have a ferret which we adopted from a rescue almost three and a half
years ago. He was with another ferret and they were both suppose to be
6+ years old. The other ferret had adrenal disease, insulinoma, and
cardiac issues. He passed away a few months after we brought him home.
The other ferret named Bandit did not appear to be 6+ years old and our
vet thought maybe 2 years old. So he is between 5.5 and 9.5 years old.

Bandit has had insulinoma for the last year and a half. He appears to
be adrenal with a lot of hair loss on the feet and bottom of the tail.
A Deslorin Implant several months ago has not had any effect. He seemed
to be looking very skinny and his weight was down about 4 - 5 ounces.
We found he had a predominance of a spore forming rod in his stool and
was put on clavamox and then given some (forget the name) to restore
the normal flora of the digestive system. He seemed to improve for a
little while but we noticed he looked skinny again and his weight is
even lower than it was before. He weighs 1 lbs 13 ounces. He use to
average 2 lbs 3 ounces. He moves around and his eyes look clear and
bright and he is curious and gets into stuff but after a little while
he goes off and sleeps.

He gets 0.5 mls of a 1mg/1ml Prednisolone twice a day with pepcid, and
pureed chicken (15 ml chicken with about 30 ml water) He normally eats
it all without problems, but the last couple days he has not finished
it and it seems to be getting worse. We were feeding him 3 times a day
and now 4, but he doesn't seem to want to eat very much. I tried mixing
ensure tonight but that didn't help very much.

I had a ferret within the last year Sprout who ended up passing away
(we helped over the bridge at the end). We found out that he had cystic
liver disease and Bandit is acting a lot like he did. We are going to
try and get him to the vet tomorrow, Wed at the latest.

I don't want to help him over the bridge too soon, he is alert and
looks okay other than being skinny (very skinny). I'm afraid if we
can't get him to eat and turn around soon he wont have much time left.
Could he be 9 + years old and this be normal (I doubt that but I have
not had ferrets who were older than 7.

My thoughts are he is 5.5 years old and has cystic liver disease and he
doesn't have much time left. My fear is he doesn't have cystic liver
disease and this is treatable. I have seen him eating kibble but that
was a couple days ago. His stools seem normal to soft but that could be
due to the ferret tone he gets with his meds. He only gets a few drops
at med time and every other day some when its bed time. His stools are
not green or mucusy.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Mike

[P.S.] One more thing, Bandit is clear and sharp eyed and active he
does not look sick or weak but its like his body is failing if that
makes sense

Mike

[Posted in FML 6995]