Post by Damon B on Jun 13, 2014 16:51:56 GMT -5
I was a member of the old forum and participated in the mentor program to switch over my ferret Cassi. I pretty much attribute the raw diet to saving her life.
Cassi will be 6 years old this summer and was switched over to a raw diet around 4 1/2 years ago. She had gotten an ear plug at around 1 year old, that was a surgery. A few months later she was wasting away, refusing food, generally sickly. That was around when I discovered the forum. The vet thought it was helicobacter. he did another surgery and took biopsies that came back negative. Put her on Flagyl (hurray!) and something else i don't remember the name of, along with prescription diet kitten food (wet) with heavy creme trying to get her calories up.
Switching her to soupy, using a slow transition from chicken baby food, put the weight back on in a month. She's been the healthiest ferret ever since.
We noticed a few weeks ago shortly after she injured a toe she got stuck between the molding and the floor, that she was acting a little funny. There was some vomiting, but intermittent. No grinding teeth, no lethargy.... still eating, pooping and dooking, just weird.
We took her for her yearly checkup a little early and the vet decided to take some blood. Everything came back good except for low blood sugar. He asked us to bring her back for an in house test using a meter. That was today. he tested it twice and it came back in the 40's both times. He diagnosed early insulinoma, and gave us low Pred and told us to feed her smaller meals more often (he knows about the raw diet ever since the second surgery).
She has never exhibited hind leg weakness, in fact bounds up a full flight of stairs faster than me sometimes. no pawing at the mouth. no sores. never a seizure. never dead ferrets. Rarely 'lazy' ferret. She is described by her lab techs as "the spunkiest alert ferret they've ever seen".
We feed her a soupy made with around 6.5 oz of organic chicken thigh meat and pork, around 2-4 chicken hearts (depending on the size), around .25 oz organic chicken liver and a tbl spoon of powdered egg shell. We also include a little drop of raw organic pumpkin to give her some roughage, without it she can have loose stools and it gets seedy, which i know can mean poor digestion.
She is fed twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. I'd be lying if i said the feedings were always exactly 12 hours apart, but they're always close. probably around 2 ozs, but i haven't measured in years. She never successfully made the transition to meaty bone. we tried for months. it came down to making sure she was getting the nutrition she needed, and we chose to stick with a soupy.
I seem to remember when i was previous member that a morning and evening feeding was the way to go with raw. That the nutritional density of raw meat was so high for a carnivore that they don't need constant access to food.
Both times we took her to the vet, it was right after getting home. She was going on 8 hours without being fed. She's not skinny, has always maintained her weight, but now he made me feel like i was starving her. Isn't it possible that the super low BG on both blood tests was because she hadn't been fed in so long?
I also wonder, how the standard BG levels are determined? We all know that the majority of the ferrets in the US are fed kibble packed with carbs. If that's the standard... how can a raw fed ferret not have lower levels?
i'm not sure how to proceed here. i have concerns about the pred if it is unnecessary. I did notice something being off with her, and there were a couple episodes of vomiting, but I also caught her chewing on a stamp wetting roller tube. I'm sure whatever that "non toxic" stuff was didn't sit well with her either.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Cassi will be 6 years old this summer and was switched over to a raw diet around 4 1/2 years ago. She had gotten an ear plug at around 1 year old, that was a surgery. A few months later she was wasting away, refusing food, generally sickly. That was around when I discovered the forum. The vet thought it was helicobacter. he did another surgery and took biopsies that came back negative. Put her on Flagyl (hurray!) and something else i don't remember the name of, along with prescription diet kitten food (wet) with heavy creme trying to get her calories up.
Switching her to soupy, using a slow transition from chicken baby food, put the weight back on in a month. She's been the healthiest ferret ever since.
We noticed a few weeks ago shortly after she injured a toe she got stuck between the molding and the floor, that she was acting a little funny. There was some vomiting, but intermittent. No grinding teeth, no lethargy.... still eating, pooping and dooking, just weird.
We took her for her yearly checkup a little early and the vet decided to take some blood. Everything came back good except for low blood sugar. He asked us to bring her back for an in house test using a meter. That was today. he tested it twice and it came back in the 40's both times. He diagnosed early insulinoma, and gave us low Pred and told us to feed her smaller meals more often (he knows about the raw diet ever since the second surgery).
She has never exhibited hind leg weakness, in fact bounds up a full flight of stairs faster than me sometimes. no pawing at the mouth. no sores. never a seizure. never dead ferrets. Rarely 'lazy' ferret. She is described by her lab techs as "the spunkiest alert ferret they've ever seen".
We feed her a soupy made with around 6.5 oz of organic chicken thigh meat and pork, around 2-4 chicken hearts (depending on the size), around .25 oz organic chicken liver and a tbl spoon of powdered egg shell. We also include a little drop of raw organic pumpkin to give her some roughage, without it she can have loose stools and it gets seedy, which i know can mean poor digestion.
She is fed twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. I'd be lying if i said the feedings were always exactly 12 hours apart, but they're always close. probably around 2 ozs, but i haven't measured in years. She never successfully made the transition to meaty bone. we tried for months. it came down to making sure she was getting the nutrition she needed, and we chose to stick with a soupy.
I seem to remember when i was previous member that a morning and evening feeding was the way to go with raw. That the nutritional density of raw meat was so high for a carnivore that they don't need constant access to food.
Both times we took her to the vet, it was right after getting home. She was going on 8 hours without being fed. She's not skinny, has always maintained her weight, but now he made me feel like i was starving her. Isn't it possible that the super low BG on both blood tests was because she hadn't been fed in so long?
I also wonder, how the standard BG levels are determined? We all know that the majority of the ferrets in the US are fed kibble packed with carbs. If that's the standard... how can a raw fed ferret not have lower levels?
i'm not sure how to proceed here. i have concerns about the pred if it is unnecessary. I did notice something being off with her, and there were a couple episodes of vomiting, but I also caught her chewing on a stamp wetting roller tube. I'm sure whatever that "non toxic" stuff was didn't sit well with her either.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
I'm sorry she has insu. It is a nasty disease. You should go to our health board-> insulinoma-> insulinoma overview. That will give you a good idea of what to expect.
