I am a lurker on this list and a ferret breeder. I have a litter of ferrets that are about 18 weeks old. About every two weeks they all come out and play in the tub and have a bath. Last night was the same as every other time. The tub was filled to ferret elbow level and every one was playing while some were getting scrubbed. Everything was fine. Rinsing began and I drained the tub and handed the newly rinsed ferrets to my husband to dry. We noticed that one of the little girls just layed there in the tub. She would look at me, but wouldn't lift her head. I took her out and she felt cold! - even thou the water was warm and I never saw anybody with there face in the water. We dried her off and placed her on the floor to watch her. She wouldn't stand, just curl up and lie there. She started to shake and had problems breathing. Her gums were turning blue and her tounge seemed like it was stuck to the roof of her mouth. Our regular vet is about an hour away, but we have an emergancy clinic right down the road from our house and I rushed her there. They wisked her to the back and came out several minutes later. She was in Grand Mal seisure stage - just like we were afraid of. The vet told me they gave her some medication and were doing some blood tests. The results of that follow: ALKP 177 IU ALT 68 IU BUN 20.8 MG/DL CREA 00.0 MG/DL GLU 296.9 MG/DL TP 5.83 G/DL I don't know what this means except for the glucose. The vet told me that she didn't think it was hypoglycemia. Infact she told me she didn't know what was the reason for the seisures. She informed me that she had given the ferret Volume. This didn't seem right to me. Why would you give a downer to a ferret that was having seisures? She wanted to do X-rays and more tests, but I wanted to get my vet's opinion. So I took her home. She was wrapped in a blanket with two hot water bottles. By the time I got home (3 mins later) she had blood and foamy fluids comming out of her nose and mouth. I knew she wouldn't make it to my vet's office. I called him and he said that he DID think it was hypoglycemia and when she started having the seisures, all we needed to do is get her sugar level back up. He told us all we needed to do is rub nutracal on her gums or caro syrup. He said that she shouldn't have been given Volume at all. He told me that her blood sugar level was so high because of the seisures. He said it was because she got stressed out from the bath and then her body temperature probably was brought down from the bath. At this piont she could hardly breath. She sounded like she was trying to suck up the rest of liquid thru a straw in a glass with ice. She had bitten her tounge, but she shouldn't have still been bleeding from that. She died the minute I hung up with the vet. We took the body to our vet so he could do a necropsy on it. I haven't gotten the results back yet, but will post the results here. If anybody can give me with idea why she had seisures, why this vet gave her Volume, or any other help I would apriciate it! We are very concerned and confused by this. We learn new things everyday about ferrets and from ferrets. I just feel so sad that that little girl died because I didn't know what to do to help her. Or because a vet - who we tend to trust - didn't know what she was doing. [PC] [Posted in FML issue 2168]