Dear Kevin:
 
>He was wedged in their pretty well.  I removed him and he appeared in
>shock.  After a few seconds he came around.  There were no obvious
>injuries and I could not feel any broken bones.
 
>After a few minutes he wanted to get down.  I layed him on the floor and
>he walked okay, then started to spit up blood.  I called a friend to bring
>us to the vets.  I kept cuddled close in my jacket while we waited.  As
>we left for the vets I noticed a pool of blood on the floor, my shirt,
>my pants.  He was bleeding from the anus... My vet agreed with the
>possibility of colitis brought on by the stress.
 
I think you wre right the first time.  Shock is a common cause of bleeding
from the anus and mouth.  In shock, you have dilation of blood vessels all
over the body.  In ferrets, this phenomenon causes leakage of blood into
the GI tract - the GI blood vessels gets dilated, and over time, just leak
into the lumen of the gut.  It happens in the GI tract down through the
rectum.  This way, they can spit up blood from the stomach, or pass blood
from the anus.
 
No other disease can put forth thae combination of blood from both ends.
Colitis can result in fresh blood from the anus, but not from the mouth or
nose.  If you are seeing blood from the mouth or at the nostrils, it is
coming from the stomach.  the only condition that causes diffuse GI
bleeding from the length of the GI tract is shock.
 
I think I wouldn't head toward a diagnosis of proliferative colitis if
this was the first instance of rectal bleeding, and it occurred after a
traumatic experience as you describe.  Let's wait a couple of days and
see if it recurs (especially before instituting treatment for colitis.)
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams, dVM
[Posted in FML issue 3241]