Steve and I have not personally encountered some of the parasites and
diseases which can cause "those other green outputs" (for lack of a better
term, or lack of a better brain in me) but we know someone whose ferret had
an intestinal growth which caused problems and part of symptomology
included runs (but I don't know the color), and we've had coccidea brought
in only to learn (by imparted knowledge rather than the hard way,
fortunately) that coccidea can kill if a run down ferret gets it or the
organism goes wild.  Have also personally seen (many years ago) very bad
green runs with an truly nasty influenza which had some GI components so
the little ones then had impaired respiration, dehydration, and one whopper
of a fever -- came close to losing a couple to that.  Have run (Oh, bad pun!
Must have Bob-envy!) into other types of diarrhea with some serious things,
too, of course, like pudding stools with helicobacter (fortunately never the
tar ones of ulcers with helicobacter), or butter scotch color pudding stools
with insulinoma.  You know how it is -- lots of things can cause runs, and
if they get to bad no matter what the cause the dehydration and electrolyte
loss is potentially fatal (hence the love here of Pedialyte, Kayolyte and
such); my understanding is that anything which speeds up the progress
through the GI tract enough can result in a green color.  (The necrotic
smell with ECE is sure different than what we've personally encountered with
other illnesses.) BTW, here's an output question.  I've seen ferret with
liver problems, but NOT with the gray stools which humans can get with some
liver problems; has anyone seen any gray stools?
 
Troy Lynn, good luck with the new (fortunately short term from the
description) thing you and your shelter are dealing with now!  When you
can, PLEASE, get some sleep, okay?
 
Oh, I got a reply that even though the new blood substitute has not been
tested in ferrets as far as that vet knew, that it probably stands a decent
chance of working well for them, too.  Have not inquired yet at the AMC with
the researcher who worked on it.
 
[P.S.]
Forgot to add: The steps you mention are PERFECT, Jason.  I just worry about
the people who think, "Well, if ECE is viral we'll just tough out anything
green." which doesn't make sense given that there ARE supportive measures
vets have, and there too often ARE secondary infections/problems with ECE
which need antibiotic combinations, or Carafate, or Prednisone (which Spot
fortunately LOVED crushed and mixed in with a bit of Ferretone), or
whatever, or a ferret might have a different cause of its runs which needs
ADDITIONAL treatment.
 
I probably just didn't read closely enough.
[Posted in FML issue 2332]