I have a health problem with my loved ferret Gigio. He is going to be 4 y/o in a couple of months. Two years ago he started having some periods of time (from one week to up to a month) where he lacked of appetite, probably every 4-5 months. Basically no other notorious symptoms and often in coincidence with his shedding season. But in the last year there has been some new symptoms and more frequent, now every 3 or so months he seems to have an upset stomach because it starts having some nausea, one or two nights (it seems that is always at nights) and finally he has one bad night when he throws up his food a couple of hours after he has eaten (sometimes sooner), so far it has been always at nights, then he continues with this nausea sometimes intermittently (one day yes a couple of days no and again yes) for half a week or so. During this time he eats but less amount, drinks fine, his poop is normal but thin and scarce (I guess that is because he eats much less), he does not cough during the day or night or has diarrhea, but I have the impression that his belly is a bit hard, I normally feel his intestines and they are soft or hard depending if he has food inside, but those days I feel his intestines hard all the time even if he has just went to potty and hasn t had any recent meal. Gigio has had only external surgeries (chordoma and mast cell tumor). All his blood test have been normal, being the most recent done in September 2002, by then he was already showing this problem, since then he has had two periods as I described previously. About his diet, he spend the first 2 years of his life eating IAMS kitten food but when the formula changed he didn t wanted it anymore and we changed to Purina ProPlan kitten, when he started having appetite problems I had to include in his diet baby food (turkey) mixed with his kibble at least 1 spoon a day. For the past 4 months in an attempt to give him healthier food I started mixing into the baby food, some chicken (boiled breast) twice a day together with his grinded kibble for his lunch around 2PM and dinner around 9 PM and then he has free access to food (dry kibble) and water for the rest of the night until the morning, he sleeps in my room with no cage (in the drawers) that is how I know what is going on with him at nights. Even if he can eat whenever he wants at nights, he usually waits until 6AM, rarely he eats around 1 or 2 AM and again around 6AM when he starts visiting his dish but he can go again even after 9AM. What I want to notice is that he eats 3 or 4 times a day with long spaces of time in between, but this has been his behavior since very young. During the day he does not wants dry kibble any more and just will eat his baby food mix. These days he hasn t been well and I tried for the first time to give him half centimeter of PeptoBismol at night (because he just present problems at nights) for 2 days after the day he vomited, he seemed to be doing fine so I suspended the Pepto one night and then yesterday night I noticed he has some nausea again (you know how they move their mouths in discomfort as they salivate) so I gave him some Pepto and he could spend a good night without further problems. So now I am very concerned about what this could be. Could it be one of those mysterious blockages that remains in his stomach for years moving up and down? (he is a good ferret that does not chews on cloth or rubber but there is always a chance) Could it be that he has gastritis or ulcers, perhaps helicobacter? (if so, is it normal to go on and off every 3 or 4 months?) I have never seen any evidence of blood (fresh or dry) in his stools. If we go to the vet what has to be checked? I don t want to do an exploratory surgery on him because I don t feel confident with the technical experience of vets in Mexico regarding to ferrets, most of them still use intravenous anesthetics. Please if you have ideas or suggestions I will appreciate it very much. This ferret is my kid, he is the only one, he knows that everybody loves him. Thank you. Cathie and Gigio. [Posted in FML issue 4085]