Help! This is long and rambling... Ok, I've spent hours searching the archives and other sites for answers, and I give up! My regular ferret-vet won't be back in until Monday, and I don't trust the other vet's knowledge, or rather, lack of, in ferret-related issues, and I'm so frazzled by her latest illness and my poor vet's office is going nuts with all my phone calls I'm trying all avenues to find help. Here goes: My darling almost 8-year-old-girl Dweezil (yes, Dweezil again) is currently being treated for ulcers. I noticed she'd stopped eating her crunchies a couple weeks ago, and upon taking her to the vet I found she'd lost almost 30% of her weight since last October (I thought she'd just blown her winter coat and was just kinda skinny, not emaciated!), she's not 'grinding' her teeth per se, but more like a 'chattering' motion with her mouth open without making a sound, and a lot of chin-rubbing and dark diarrhea, considering how light-colored her food is. The 'bad' vet I went to at first was no help at all (her regular vet's not in on Fridays; my day off from work), he just told me to keep feeding her Duck Soup and bring her back in a week to see if she'd gained weight! So I did a lot of reading and thinking and *light bulb* 'ulcers!' so I took her back to her regular ferret vet on Monday and he suspects ulcers and/or hairballs, or both. She's now getting a suspension of Amoxi, Carafate and Pepcid, 0.5mL bid x21 days, and also Laxatone bid to see if she does pass a hairball. I've been finding a lot of differing info about this, and it seems I should be giving the meds anywhere from 15-45 mins prior to feeding for proper absorption and protective/coating action. What's the proper length of time prior to feeding? I'm also wondering, that since she's only getting the meds twice a day, but I'm feeding her more like four times a day (all she's eating now is Duck Soup, so every 6 hours, roughly; hard to do with a 10-1/2 hour a day job, lots of rushed trips home on lunch and help from the other half), should I be giving her just Carafate before the other feedings? It would seem that she needs the Carafate prior to *each* feeding to help with the coating/protective action, no? Not just during the twice-a-day meds? And if that's the case, how much Carafate should I give, and how long prior to feeding? Due to where I work, I have access to generic sucralfate suspension, 1gram/10mL unit dose cups; can this be adjusted for proper dosage for a barely-over-a pound ferret? Or will I need to spend more money at the vet to get the proper dilution? And how should the suspension be kept once opened? In the fridge? And how long does it keep? Also, the Amoxi/Carafate/Pepcid suspension I have from the vet seems to be bubblegum flavor (since I've unfortunately been showered with it, I've tasted it) and she hates it. Is there another flavor they seem to take to better? Lastly, I've just mixed up and frozen another *huge* batch of Duck Soup in ice cube trays only to read now that the Ensure shouldn't be added until after the cube has been defrosted/lightly heated in the microwave, since it's not meant to be heated. Too late. I already mixed it all in. Is the batch useless now? Should I not 'nuke' the cubes and let one defrost in the fridge and then warm to room temp right before feeding? And is unsweetened soymilk safe to add to thin it down even more? Or is unflavored Pedialyte a better choice? Or both? I think I added too much Ensure and now I'm afraid she's getting too much sugar. The recipe is culled from a bunch of different sites/sources and it goes something like this, approximately: 2 cups Iam's kitten food (her regular food), ground fine 1 cup filtered water 2 jars Gerber 2nd Stage chicken baby food 1 can Hill's a/d 2 cans vanilla Ensure Plus This made 3 ice cube trays full. I'm so full of questions and anxiety right now... Thanks for any help offered... :) Hitting 'send' now after numerous edits/rewrites. *sigh* ~daoine o', aka sick little Dweezil's mom and Razzle, Monty-boo, and Jezebel, all thankfully healthy right now (knock on wood) [Posted in FML issue 4512]