Ferret Choking ?

[infernalancestry]

One of my ferrets is a bit of a fatty and ate his chicken wings too fast - he usually just coughs up anything he eats too fast and chews it again - but for the past 10~ minutes he's been making little "kehpkhep" noises and sounds like he's struggling to breathe a bit ? He's also breathing quite fast and occassionally coughing quiet little squeeky/wheezy coughs as opposed to the usual "GHAK" hairball/bone coughs

I can't see anything in his mouth/throat but I gave him some vaseline and made him drink a little water through a syringe but that didnt seem to help

Will he eventually cough it up on his own or is there something I can do to help him out ?

[infernalancestry]

He's playing as usual but when he gets too into the play he just coughs more 😭

[infernalancestry]

He fell asleep curled up with his brother and the weird noises have stopped, it's at least a relief to know that he was probably intentionally trying to get some bone out of his mouth rather than genuinely struggling to breathe.

I'd still love some advice for what I can do to help ease this if he's still struggling when he wakes up / if it happens again and he doesn't want to go to sleep

(this has definitely encouraged me to stock up on a lot of whole grind meals, every time either of them cough a bit my heart sinks 😭)

[Corvidophile]

Pumpkin can help push something lodged in the throat down, but you may want it to come back up instead- if he’s still struggling when he wakes up you may want to take him to a vet to have them remove the obstruction manually. Try pumpkin first to see if you can’t push it into the stomach where it can be digested.

[unclejoe]

try to listen to his lungs and see if you anything unusual. It's tough with a ferret, but maybe when he first wakes up. sometimes all it takes is a hair in the nose or throat to cause that irritation. One member in the facebucket group recently dealt with it for a couple days before she was able to spot the hair sticking out of the fuzzy's nose.