I posted a few weeks ago about a new ferret we adopted by the name of Suzzie. She was a terrifying biter and wouldn't let anyone touch her without taking out a piece of meat from your hand. A few days after that I noticed her gagging when she took a drink of water, then noticed her stools were very small maybe 1/4 inch in length. She started loosing weight and refused to eat. She was grinding her teeth and I thought maybe she had something stuck at the back of her throat. I took her to the vets and was told her throat was badly swollen and inflamed and gave me some antibiotics for her. I mistakenly believed she would eat when she was hungry so didn't do much of anything for the next two days except force the amoxil down her throat with a suringe. She became very weak and so in desperation we forced her to eat some baby food (Gurber's chicken, strained) about 4 c.c. worth. A phone call to the vets informed us that she needed at least 40-50 c.c. a day to keep her going. She basically refused to eat at all, so I checked the FAQ about Duck Soup.... made it up and started force feeding that to her. after watering it down more, she started eating it off my finger, then after a few days, would lick it out of the dish, then me changed her to blenderized iams kitten food, then finally back to her regular purina cat food. I guess I got a little off topic regarding idgie but it seems to me that all the signs and symtoms were the same..... drastic change of environment, followed by stress and the resulting problems.Suzzy started to play 2 days ago and her health has improved tremendusly. She no longer bites and even tolerates the other ferrets. I don't know why her throat swelled up, She wasn't exposed to anything the other 3 weren't, but I truly believe stress caused this near death experience. ps... the vet was pretty interested in the FAQ on ferrets... I gave him a copy. Richard Beveridge [log in to unmask] [Posted in FML issue 1248]