>Hi, April! It was from Dr. Bruce Williams that I learned that the risk >of aspiration pneumonia is not at all negledgable in ferrets. Of >course, in your case yo uare trained and you are doing it only short >term for very sick animals for whom there is no other choice. The >poster was talking about anyone doing it, and was talking about forcing >a daily supplement that way. Hello, too! :) I just wanted to say that I do know that it's a risk, but I think that if folks are properly trained (we don't send our clients home to syringe feed without showing them how and discussing the risks and giving them instruction and suggestions for how to do it safely, and we like to demonstrate), the risks are not as great in a ferret as in, say, a bird. If we can teach our clients how to syringe feed their sick ferrets, the ferrets often recover faster and better at home-ferrets seem to get less depressed and recover FASTER whenever they can be treated at home. An example would be my Shannon, who spent a week at another animal hospital last year b/c of an emergency ultrasound requirement, and during her time there, she became extremely despressed, despite my daily visits. It slowed her recovery (she was still requiring an IV catheter for fluids after 5 days, which was unexpected, given her condition upon admission), and once they were able to stabilize her enough so she could come home, her recovery improved considerably. I have seen this in numerous ferret patients. I guess my point was just that ferret owners shouldn't be terrified to learn the skill-unfortunately, it's probably going to be a necessary one for most ferret owners in the course of their ferrets' lives-and I just didn't want people unfamiliar with it to balk too much if it's ever suggested to them. DEFINITELY learn how to do it PROPERLY to minimize your risks, but also don't think of it as being too scary. I don't think I'm saying this well, but I'm just trying to get across that it's not the riskiest thing you'll ever do for your ferret if you take the time to learn how to do it. As far as forcing a regular supplement goes, part of the idea of force-feeding a supplementary diet is that eventually, once they've been "forced" to try it, your ferret may decide it's not so bad and start eating on its own; however, without those initial syringe feedimgs, you may never get to that point. My insulinomic Marley WOULD NOT eat turkey or chicken baby food when I first started supplementing his food, and I had to syringe feed it to get him to try it. After a few weeks, though, he decided it wasn't so bad and would eat it from a plate if I held him. Then he decided he didn't need me to hold him, and I could just put the plate down on the floor for him. This made the transition to Bob Church's Chicken Gravy (modified for his insulinoma) a cakewalk-he just started eating that on his own right away. Incidentally, I have to force his prednisone medication into him twice a day, every day, for life, and you could theoretically cause aspiration pneumonia by giving meds this way, too, but it is necessary (though not as likely as with a larger syringe of food). I wanted my other ferrets to start having Bob's Gravy a few times a week to supplement their diets more naturally, and I had to syringe it to a few of them, too, before they'd try it. Just trying to alleviate some fears... Hope that clarifies! Cheers, April [Posted in FML issue 4247]