>We took her to the vet, and x-rays showed no large masses, lots of fat >around her kidneys, a slightly enlarged heart, but everything was >relatively normal. Keep an eye on her heart and speak with the vet about the possibility of doing an ultrasound of it and when to do that. It sounds like at this point it's NOT at a level where the vet feels there is a clear indication of cardiomyopathy, so could be a variation and watching will be done. Cardiomyopathy can be treated so that the time survived with it is far longer than it would be without treatment and the quality of that time can be so dramatically improved that it is startling to experience. Meanwhile, do keep this individual away from anything that is potentially damaging to a ferret heart -- true licorice (not artificial stuff), for example, can be very rough on a heart, but fats and cholesterol seem to make no difference at all to ferret heart disease). Salt has never been proven to have an effect one way of another; can recall back when they weren't sure if it might in the early stages and we had to make our own ferret food back then till more was known. DO read the heart information at http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc , esp. the info from Bruce Williams . Hopefully, this is will just be personal variation of the ferret and not intermittent ascites from very early cardiomyopathy, but if you have the information ahead of time then you will know constructive actions to take if it's not just that. If you are lucky then, heck, you'll have learned something that might help you help someone else down the line, that's all. No such thing as time wasted when it's for learning... There are other possible causes of true intermittent ascites such as liver or kidney disease. Cardiomyopathy usually -- but not always -- is preferable to those IF our personal experiences hold across the board. Meltdown lived the longest of our's who had cardiomyopathy and she had something like a year or more; a few ferrets have done better than that with careful medical treatment adjusted over time to suit the changing heart's needs. They can have a decent chunk of real quality time with cardiomyopathy if meds are used properly. I am not a vet, just someone with 19 years of ferret experience behind me (as I keep repeating ad nauseum). The absolutely best things we have found for cleaning teeth at home are Cheweasels and Foamy Fries. They also reduce kit biting because they reduce the pain of teething (important tip). You can get them in a bunch of places but we usually use The Ferret Store http://www.theferretstore.com Do NOT use rawhide, pigs ears (unless you boil those till they are as hydrated as fresh), or similar dog/cat chew things since potentially fatal blockages can occur in ferrets. [Posted in FML issue 3476]