I have owned 2 cute little ferrets for about 10 months and sometime
between Halloween and Thanksgiving my Lorelei ferret started acting sick.
We called the emergency vet because she had cold/flu symptoms and we had
been told that this could be serious.  Anyway, it was not a cold or the
flu and she seemed to improve for a couple of days.  Then she stopped
using her hind legs and became very lethargic.  We also noticed a small
lesion on her right side just behind her shoulder blade.  The vet
initially thought it was some sort of bite, possibly spider or one of my
other animals (though the dogs are never unsupervised around my little
ferrets) and treated with antibiotics.  When that did not get a response
he removed the affected lymph node and the lesion and did biopsy the
lymph node and lesion.  He also did blood work and everything came back
negative for cancer and other suspected illnesses.  After many courses
of antibiotics to be sure it was not bacterial she was treated with
prednisone because the illness also mimicked inflammatory disease.  Still
no luck.  All the while she continued to lose weight.  She is just over
a lb now and has maintained this weight for a little over 6 weeks.
 
Basically, we are two surgeries, a zillion biopsies and every medication
available to ferrets down the road and my vet is still baffled.  He is a
knowledgeable ferret vet, he specializes in cancer and has been talking
to vets nationally and still has no clue.  A few other vets had seen
similar cases but all those ferrets died early on.  I should also mention
that her cage/litter mate is fine and healthy.
 
Has anyone else experienced any kind of unexplained ferret illness?
Right now she is on Interferon and it has improved her appetite but not
her energy level.  At this point my vet and I are both looking for any
clues as this does not seem to be epidemic but isolated so no one really
knows what to do.
 
Thanks,
Danielle
[Posted in FML issue 4418]