We have a ferret (Mufassa) who is having trouble with his weight.

Here is some of his history. From birth until he was three years old he
lived in horrible conditions. He is deaf and was a horible bitter, when
he bit he burried his teeth.. I swear back then when he was out playing
no one wanted to be back in the ferret room. You could hear the jaws
theam when he was out. I usually had at least two bandaids on my
fingers and he liked to chew on fingers that had bandaids. It took
seven months of love and treats but now he is the sweetest ferret on
earth. He was fixed after the age of three and was not descented. He
got adreanal disease and had surgery but the adreanal came back within
a few months, now he has a Deslorin Implant. He has been part of our
family for 3 years 2 months which makes him at least 6 years old
probably 6 and a half.

Right after we lost Sprout we noticed that Mufassa looked very thin
even though he as always the first ferret for treats (hard or soft)
(one of our treats is 8 in 1 ferret food). We weighed him and he
weighed 1 lbs 14 ounces (about what Sprout had been running). Mufassa's
normal weight was from 2 lbs 8 ounces to 2 lbs 14 onces (closer to
the upper weight of 2 lbs 14 ounces). We started to feed him the same
pureed chicken we gave to Sprout and he was all over it. At that same
time it looked like he was eating funny, turning his head way to the
side while eating. Mufassa isn't the most cooperative when it comes to
looking in his mouth. We scruff him and he clamps his mouth shut and
isn't about to let anyone or anything in. This makes examining his
mouth very very hard. We saw what we thought could be an infected
tooth. Our vet was not in on that day but we did get some antibiotics
for him. On Monday we had him in to see our vet his weight in April was
2 lbs 7 ounces but on that Monday it was 1 lbs 14 ounces. He did have a
problem with his teeth. We continued the antibiotics and scheduled him
for a dental the following week. We gave Mufassa frequent soft food
meals and when when it came time for his dental he weighed 2 lbs 9
ounces. He had his dental and had to have two incisors and one moler
removed. We fed him the soft food for several more days and then
tapered down. Mufassa was started to behaving like a ferret again
dance and tackel other ferrets. That was short loved because a couple
weeks later he look less active, more weepy in the eyes (for him that
is a sign he doesn't feel good), and he started to kiss may arms a lot
(I think this is his way of telling me there is something wrong). I
also noticed that he seemed to be eating funny again. Back to the
vet, Mufassa did his best to hide his teeth from us. We couldn't see
anything and decided to do some more antibiotics and if it didn't clear
up we would have to sedate him to get a good look at his mouth. He
improved and we cut back on the food again. Now he is still having
trouble with his weight 2 lbs 4 ounces which I think is too low for a
ferret who normaly weighs 5 - 9 ounces more than that. He still loves
the pureed chicken and he still eats from the food dish and treats.

I'm not sure if he is still having trouble eating, even though I see
him eating, or if it's normal for a ferrets weight to drop some as
they get past 6 years old?

Does this make sense to anyone?

Thanks

Mike

[Posted in FML 6816]