First of all I would like to thank those who responded to my previous
post about my ferret, Rocky, hacking and coughing.  He seems to be
coughing less lately.
 
Another problem has developed though.  For the past week Rocky has been
excessively scratching and biting at his fur, tail, ears, etc..  At
first I really only noticed him scratching his ears but now he is doing
it all over his body.  When I say excessively scratching, I mean he does
it like every 10 seconds or even more frequently.  He well take like 10
steps then stop and scratch, then take another 10 steps or so and stop
and scratch again.  It appears to be rather violent scratching too.
Also, when he is trying to sleep will suddenly spring awake and scratch
violently every 5-10 mins.  This is really starting to worry me because I
don't think he is getting very much sleep because of this and I am sure
it is taking a toll on him.
 
He is less than a year old and I have only had him for a few weeks so I
had not really cleaned his ears until he started scratching them.  I
suspected ear mites so I cleaned his ears.  Anyway, when I did clean
them, it really didn't seem like there was an excessive amount of wax in
his ears and it didn't seem like it was dark red or anything like the
books described as being characteristic to ear mites.  I have checked his
whole body for fleas and I have yet to see any.  I am really stumped as
to what could be making him so itchy.  Also, I have only given him one
bath since I got him, and that was today.  So I am not over bathing him
or anything.  The reason a bathed him today was to see if it would help
the itching, but it didn't.
 
If any one can help me out here it would be greatly appreciated because I
am not sure what else to do.  If any one can recommend anything that
would relieve him at least temporarily so he could get some sleep that
would be great too.
 
Thanks in advance,
Zach Jorgensen
[Posted in FML issue 4108]