Pred belly is fat. I have a human friend who is a 15 year old boy. He was on prednisone to help control the effects of Meniere's disease. In spite of a normal diet and weekly exercise practicing and teaching karate, he gained weight and got a definite pred belly. He recently found out that the diagnosis was incorrect and was taken off of prednisone. In less than a year he has lost over 70 pounds. Obviously, you can't take your ferret off of his prednisone, but you can do the normal things you would do to help an overweight pet. Our ferret has been on pred for two years now. We have helped him lose some of his pred belly by reducing the amount of duck soup he gets for his between medication meals snacks. We have purchased and created new toys to stimulate his interest. We play with him running up and down the stairs. We take all of the socks out of his hidey hole in one room and put them in another room in a basket so he has to work to get them out of the basket and run back and forth to restash them under the bed. We get on the floor and play chase with him. In other words, the best thing you can do it play, play and play some more. Since we have been actively less worried about how sick our ferret is and more concerned about how much fun he can have he has lost weight from rolley polley fat down to a little pudgy. Veda [Posted in FML issue 4739]