Q: "Bob! I have a very sick little girl who I will have to handfeed. I have a problem squirting duck soup down her throat. How do you do it?" A: That's a mite personal, isn't it? You can email me later for "details"...Oh, how do you force liquids. Never mind.... I will probably come into come confict with people on this, but I NEVER force liquid food down ferret's throats. If I think a ferret is so ill and dehydrated that they need fluid, I am off to the vet for an inspection. If, with the vet's approval, fluids need to be given, I have the vet (or myself with the vet's knowledge) give them sub-q. This is just an OPINION, but I would never do to an animal what I would never let happen to me and that includes ethical medical treatment. Here's the problem. Ferrets, like all animals, have an instinctual need to eat enough to maintain metabolic needs and drink enough to maintain body fluids. When they stop eating or drinking, it means there is something wrong. Now I consider myself to be about as smart as most people, so I realize the advantage the vet has over me is precise training, diagnostic equipment, in depth experience and objectivity. They have the tools and objectivity to illuminate the problem. I do not. Therefore, not only can't I diagnose over the internet, BUT, I can't even do an adequate job of it with my own ferrets. I'm not embarrassed. Vets can't do my job either. This is a TRUE story. A person emailed me, saying their ferret wouldn't eat. I immediately said they should do NOTHING until they saw a vet, which they should do immediately. Well, this person also asked several other people (in a sort of shotgun approach) for ferret advice, and several suggested feeding the ferret duck soup with a syringe. Two things happened. First, the ferret had a bacterial infection in the intestines and the large amount of nutrients DID NOT DO THE FERRET GOOD! Second, the ferret was weak and aspirated some of the soup and developed a very nasty pneumonia. The ferret died several days later, when sub-q fluids and antibiotic therapy might have saved its life. Life is hard, and you learn as you live. The point is the ferret knew what to do. You don't feed nasty little bacteria; you starve them, encase them in sticky mucus and shoot them out the back door as fast as you can before they eat through the intestinal lining. The ferret didn't NEED nutrients; it had a storehouse of them in it's body and could have gone without eating for several days. Somehow, in all the drug company hype, we have forgotten the best way to get over an intestinal infection is simply getting a fever and a good case of the runs. The problem with the runs is it washes out a lot of water and electrolytes, and that can kill a ferret if it is weak, or it goes on too long. Ferrets with the runs don't die of starvation; they die of dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. A little lactated ringers given just under the skin, maybe some mild antibioltics, and the problem is solved. The ferret can get on with ruining your carpet, and in a day or so most will start wanting to eat. But not all. Some will have to be hand-fed and here is where I will come into conflict again with some people. I don't give my ferrets duck soup. I give some feline A&D when I have it, but mostly I just give them Gerber's chicken baby food straight out of the jar. Its pasty, it sticks well to your finger and they lick it off. If I think they need calories, I grind up some kibble and mix it in, or maybe a little nutrical. I nuke it in the microwave, stir it with my finger so I know they won't burn their little pink tongues and then I finger feed them. When, on the rare occasion I use a syringe, it is to dispense the stuff to the tip of the ferret's tongue; I NEVER squirt the stuff inside the mouth where it could be accidently inhaled. MY problem has never been getting a ferret to eat, BUT weaning them off the finger afterwards. They REALLY like being hand fed. This post is really going to get a lot of people angry for implying duck soup is no better than Gerber's baby food. Most versions have stuff in it that are marginally effective, or have compounds with could exacerbate a problem rather than cure one. I have NO idea what some of those things do inside a sick ferret, how they interact, or even if they do anything at all. Most duck soup recipes appear to be one of those "hey, I heard this can help...let's add some" brews that have little or no proven merit, absolutely no medical testing for effectiveness, and no consideration of the medical consequences. See, there's the thing. If you give duck soup and the ferret recovers, you consider duck soup a miracle cure. BUT, if the ferret dies while eating duck soup, then you have done all that you could have done and nothing would have done any difference. This is a classic tautology; if they die eating suck soup, they were too sick to survive, and if they survive eating duck soup, the duck soup cured them. Factual evidence would be giving one group of ill fererts duck soup and another baby food, then checking things like loss of weight, length of illness, and recovery and survival rates. But damn! That's medical experimentation on ferrets. Bob C and 16 Mo' Finger Feeders [Posted in FML issue 3026]