The Ashland Humane Society let me see the ferret this afternoon.
 
The poor fellow.  He is a neutered chocolate male, at least 4-5 years old
is my guess, but his teeth appear so worn and dirty it's hard to tell.  His
coat is the worst I've ever seen on a ferret, dry and brittle, and dull
colored from dirt.  He appears very dehydrated, but not terribly
underweight.  He has no muscle.
 
And he has this huge hard growth on the top of his head.  If it is a tumor,
it is a boney one.  And so big the skin on the top of his head is
stretched.  I didn't detect any other lumps or bumps on his body, but his
abdomen seemed unusually hard.
 
I didn't see any signs of fleas or other parasites, and when I commented on
that to the woman there, she said she had been surprised by it too, given
had been maggots in his cage.  His ears didn't look too bad either, but I
forgot to bring q-tips to clean them.
 
I started off by giving him about 20 ccs of duck soup and some ferretone,
then my daughter Joy helped me trim his nails.  Then another 20 ccs of
soup.  He took it readily.  He was quiet and passive, except he started
getting wiggly after I finished feeding him.  I put him in his cage and he
used his litter box like a good boy.  Then he used the litter to wipe his
face too.  Sigh...
 
I asked the woman if there was anyway they could give me temporary custody
of him to take care of him.  It's too far away for me to make daily trips
to feed him duck soup (almost an hour drive).  She said she had been
thinking the same thing.  She would make phone calls tomorrow (I think to
the prosecutor's office) to see if that could be arranged.
 
So we wait and see what happens next.
 
Linda Iroff
The Raisin Retreat
Oberlin, Ohio
http://www.oberlin.edu/~liroff/ncfs.html
[Posted in FML issue 2476]