Among the ferret lists I am currently on (not a lot due to lack of time but two are large) I have heard from 2 others who had ferrets whose stitches gave way due to seromas undermining tissue integrity. Seromas are kind of huge blisters under all the layers of skin in that they are a collection of serum. I've been told that they can be painful. It looks like when a post-op seroma happens not only does draining make sense but adding staples in case the stitches pull right through the skin also makes sense. In Whiz's case the stitches were intact where they were attached to the omentum but they lost their hold on the skin. Whizzie is happily eating liquidy meals every two hours and looks and acts great now. She is on added meds, of course, and carefully monitored in case any sign of infection occurs. Peritonitis is the worry when a ferret has the kind of problem she did, but thank goodness for everything working in her emergency. Later note: BTW, the tad of intestine coils that began to be pulled along by the "cords" of omentum were not as red as the omentum (though I gather that they can be but are usually lighter with blood vessels along a side) and the ones we briefly saw had about the diameter of the holes in elbow macaroni, so very thin. It is easy to see how blockages happen when ferrets eat latex, rubber, etc. The omentum came out looking like thick, bloody coils. This sounds to be a very rare complication, but we know now that if a post-surgical seroma happens we will get the area stapled in case the stitches rip through the flesh. Thank goodness for having great vets, a wonderful hubby, the plastic bag we needed to keep her lower body in while carrying her, and having a strong little ferret. Sukie (not a vet) Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html [Posted in FML 5775]