Post by jarrett on Jan 30, 2019 17:03:49 GMT -5
Hey everyone, haven't posted in a while but I'm here to seek some more advice. In the time since I last posted I lost my sweet baby Diana to kidney disease. It's taken me a little while to get to a point where I can start focussing on things again, and so here I am. I'm planning on beginning my ferrets on their transition journey this coming weekend. I just have a few questions for today.
First, Ishtar, my other girl, has been started on Dexamethasone five drops by mouth twice a day to treat for insulinoma. I had noticed her demonstrating some of the symptoms of the disease for a little while, mostly just stopping and staring intermittently while playing. Her BG was 51, which I was astounded by of course based on the numbers I've seen on here, yet for some reason my vet seemed to think it wasn't as concerning as I did. I wondered if maybe his BG tests were just not calibrated to ferrets and if perhaps he was doing the math in his head and the actual number was closer to 71. I've seen such differentials suggested on here when using human BG monitors, and that's the only thing I could think of to explain his attitude towards the situation as well as her relatively minimal symptoms. Still looking to get a second opinion from another vet though, as even though my vet was recommended by the Ferret Association of Connecticut I'm starting to wonder if perhaps he's not quite as qualified as previously thought. Since starting the Azium drops, aka Dexamethasone, her symptoms have gone away completely and her energy levels have seemed to increase overall. I mention her disease, medication, and current condition just so everyone reading this has that as background.
For the food I've purchased several raw grinds from Hare Today, as well as some extra organ. Here's what was purchased:
-1lb boneless ground chicken breast
-1lb ground meat/bone/organ chicken: 68% meat 27% bone 5% organ [liver]
-1lb boneless ground duck
-1lb ground meat/bone/organ duck: 71% meat 24% bone 5% organ [liver]
-3lbs ground whole carcass rabbit: 80% meat 10% bone 10% organ [liver, pancreas, kidney, brains, spleen]
-2lbs ground meat/bone/organ mutton: 73% meat 17% bone 10% organ [liver, pancreas, kidney]
-2lbs beef kidney
I plan to mix the boneless and bone-in poultry grinds to balance out the bone percentage. Chicken hearts will be purchased from the grocery store Saturday on the way home from work. I work in a kitchen and will be using some spare space to portion out a weeks worth of meals to take home. I'll start by mixing the grinds with warm water to make soups, and will attempt the grab-n-dab method all Sunday and Monday as ill be home both days. Once I get a feel for how much they'll eat (if any!) I'll worry about portioning out further meals. I'll be getting in a shipment of much more meat, bones, and organs the 19th of February through a local co-op. From there I will attempt to transition from a commercial diet to a frankenprey diet.
I'll have to watch Ishtar very carefully with her condition, and will have to make sure she's eating something one way or another on her usual schedule to prevent a BG crash. Luckily she's much more curious towards new foods than my boy, Loki. She switched to Wysong Digestive support without so much as an extra sniff, so hopefully that bodes well for her transition journey. Loki, the pickier of the two, is also luckily the healthier of the two. At 6 he is still as hyper as always and his winter weight has held well. The only concern with him is that in recent months he's gotten into the habit of licking his own urine, and his blood work showed slightly elevated liver enzymes. My vet wasn't particularly worried, though now as I type this I'm realizing perhaps I should know better than to find that as a comfort. If anyone here thinks such behavior and blood work contraindicates switching at the moment, keeping in mind his healthy weight and activity levels, please let me know.
I'll be starting a journal to log weights, meals, patterns, etc. I'll try to post that information here as regularly as possible.
Now a few extra questions:
1) Both ferrets currently have terrible dental health. The vet didn't seem to think it possible to do a dental cleaning, which I know is just one more reason to find a different vet to work with. My only question though is should I wait to do the cleaning until I begin switching them to frankenprey to avoid daily toothbrushing? Obviously that's the lazy way out, but if their teeth are already terrible might it just be more effective and efficient to hold on the cleaning? Again I know that's lazy, and if it's dangerous lazy here's an open invitation to yell at me! lol.
2) I saw beef pancreas as an option on Hare today, and saw reviews raving about how it has helped many peoples pets with their pancreatic issues. A quick google turned up beef pancreas being used to treat Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency in dogs. I wondered if beef pancreas might be helpful for other pancreatic issues, understanding however that EPI results in reduced insulin production, the opposite of insulinoma. Perhaps the beef pancreas might even be harmful in Ishtar's case, either way I figured I'd ask here if anyone has any experience/opinions on this as I couldn't find anything using the search feature.
As I think of more questions I'll post them here, and if anyone has any questions for me feel free to ask. Any advice/information is of course always greatly appreciated!
First, Ishtar, my other girl, has been started on Dexamethasone five drops by mouth twice a day to treat for insulinoma. I had noticed her demonstrating some of the symptoms of the disease for a little while, mostly just stopping and staring intermittently while playing. Her BG was 51, which I was astounded by of course based on the numbers I've seen on here, yet for some reason my vet seemed to think it wasn't as concerning as I did. I wondered if maybe his BG tests were just not calibrated to ferrets and if perhaps he was doing the math in his head and the actual number was closer to 71. I've seen such differentials suggested on here when using human BG monitors, and that's the only thing I could think of to explain his attitude towards the situation as well as her relatively minimal symptoms. Still looking to get a second opinion from another vet though, as even though my vet was recommended by the Ferret Association of Connecticut I'm starting to wonder if perhaps he's not quite as qualified as previously thought. Since starting the Azium drops, aka Dexamethasone, her symptoms have gone away completely and her energy levels have seemed to increase overall. I mention her disease, medication, and current condition just so everyone reading this has that as background.
For the food I've purchased several raw grinds from Hare Today, as well as some extra organ. Here's what was purchased:
-1lb boneless ground chicken breast
-1lb ground meat/bone/organ chicken: 68% meat 27% bone 5% organ [liver]
-1lb boneless ground duck
-1lb ground meat/bone/organ duck: 71% meat 24% bone 5% organ [liver]
-3lbs ground whole carcass rabbit: 80% meat 10% bone 10% organ [liver, pancreas, kidney, brains, spleen]
-2lbs ground meat/bone/organ mutton: 73% meat 17% bone 10% organ [liver, pancreas, kidney]
-2lbs beef kidney
I plan to mix the boneless and bone-in poultry grinds to balance out the bone percentage. Chicken hearts will be purchased from the grocery store Saturday on the way home from work. I work in a kitchen and will be using some spare space to portion out a weeks worth of meals to take home. I'll start by mixing the grinds with warm water to make soups, and will attempt the grab-n-dab method all Sunday and Monday as ill be home both days. Once I get a feel for how much they'll eat (if any!) I'll worry about portioning out further meals. I'll be getting in a shipment of much more meat, bones, and organs the 19th of February through a local co-op. From there I will attempt to transition from a commercial diet to a frankenprey diet.
I'll have to watch Ishtar very carefully with her condition, and will have to make sure she's eating something one way or another on her usual schedule to prevent a BG crash. Luckily she's much more curious towards new foods than my boy, Loki. She switched to Wysong Digestive support without so much as an extra sniff, so hopefully that bodes well for her transition journey. Loki, the pickier of the two, is also luckily the healthier of the two. At 6 he is still as hyper as always and his winter weight has held well. The only concern with him is that in recent months he's gotten into the habit of licking his own urine, and his blood work showed slightly elevated liver enzymes. My vet wasn't particularly worried, though now as I type this I'm realizing perhaps I should know better than to find that as a comfort. If anyone here thinks such behavior and blood work contraindicates switching at the moment, keeping in mind his healthy weight and activity levels, please let me know.
I'll be starting a journal to log weights, meals, patterns, etc. I'll try to post that information here as regularly as possible.
Now a few extra questions:
1) Both ferrets currently have terrible dental health. The vet didn't seem to think it possible to do a dental cleaning, which I know is just one more reason to find a different vet to work with. My only question though is should I wait to do the cleaning until I begin switching them to frankenprey to avoid daily toothbrushing? Obviously that's the lazy way out, but if their teeth are already terrible might it just be more effective and efficient to hold on the cleaning? Again I know that's lazy, and if it's dangerous lazy here's an open invitation to yell at me! lol.
2) I saw beef pancreas as an option on Hare today, and saw reviews raving about how it has helped many peoples pets with their pancreatic issues. A quick google turned up beef pancreas being used to treat Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency in dogs. I wondered if beef pancreas might be helpful for other pancreatic issues, understanding however that EPI results in reduced insulin production, the opposite of insulinoma. Perhaps the beef pancreas might even be harmful in Ishtar's case, either way I figured I'd ask here if anyone has any experience/opinions on this as I couldn't find anything using the search feature.
As I think of more questions I'll post them here, and if anyone has any questions for me feel free to ask. Any advice/information is of course always greatly appreciated!
