Hello

[Jeremy's Boggle]

Our family adopted two ferrets in April. A Male Jeremy and female Nefertiti. Unfortunately the female who was significantly smaller died after an escape that injured her internally.

We feed all of our pets a natural diet and where able to switch our ferrets to raw rather easily.

Jeremy became ill on Christmas eve and will be coming home from the vet today. This experience has reminded me that I don't really know enough about ferret care. The vet bill was before I left on Saturday. It of course will be worse when I pick him up today.

Nicole
Al

[Sherry]

Hi, and welcome I'm so sorry to read about your loss- that can be devastating. And poor Jeremy! What was wrong if I may ask?

[Jeremy's Boggle]

Jeremy threw up Friday night all over his cage. Then Saturday he was shivering, runny nose, not eating, dehydrated and lethargic.
They took x rays on Saturday and you could see a lot of gas bubbles and two small bumps in his intestines.

I'll let you know what they say when I pick him up today as to what the cause might have been.

We have been thinking about adopting a new friend but I don't know after seeing what the vet bill is like. We have an old country vet for our other animals. I'll be begging him to take ferrets the next time I'm there.

[Deleted]

Awe... Welcome to the forum! It's always nice to get new members.

Sorry for your loss and I hope you boy gets better. I'll light a candle for the little lad.

[Jeremy's Boggle]

Jeremy is home and all is well. The little rascal had managed to ingest some fabric from one of his hammocks. They were able to get him to pass it. I've always been really paranoid about him ingesting things so a bit frustrating. Poor boy has come home to a bare cage.

Very happy that our wild man is back in action,

Nicole
Al

[Deleted]

That is very good to hear

Sent from my SCH-M828C using ProBoards

[Sherry]

Oh, thank heavens he passed it! That's scary when they eat what they shouldn't. You may want to pick up some rescue remedy for him. It will help him cope with the grief of losing his friend.

[allie516]

You should look into getting fleece things. Like hammocks. The fleece is easier for the animals to pass, because it is not made for strings. But very small gatherings of the fabric. We use it for chinchillas because the chinchillas eat everything but can not pass just like ferrets. I have a girl who eats fleece but we have never had a problem with her not passing it.

Welcome I am glad he is better!

[Jeremy's Boggle]

Now that I'm over my panic, let me give some more information on us. The vet bill was better than I thought it would be as well. Nice young girl vet who loves ferrets and was impressed with our active fellow who she says is bigger than most she has seen.

We live on a small homestead in rural Alabama.(with access to the 94 acres around us) We have three homeschooled children, seven dogs, four cats, five horses, four goats, two rabbits, fish, chickens and of course Jeremy. All of our animals are cared for as holistically as possible. Most of our small furries are rescues. We began raw feeding when two of our cats became ill and the vets were out of ideas. Both improved in less than a month. One has made it to 12 yrs with very few issues from his congenital heart defect.

This is our first time having ferrets. It has been mostly fun. The loss of Nefertiti was devastating but happened several months ago and Jeremy is coping well.

I have a fleece blanket in the dryer that I'll use to make Jeremy new bedding with tonight. He looks so pitiful in his big cage without any bedding.

Thank you for the warm welcomes and support. Hopefully I'll have a photo of him on the site by tomorrow evening.

Nicole

[Heather]

Hi and welcome on board. I'm sorry about the troubles that you've had with your wee one and the loss of your wee little girl. Perhaps, your boy decided to eat his blankies (perhaps sucked on them) while dealing with the grief over the loss of his friend. It happens. You can try fleece (though some of my wee ones seemed to find it the top taste in haute cuisine). I've had some success with the blanky suckers by using the coarse cottons and denim. Not as pretty but holds up well and not good munching. Your wee boy might need some RR (rescue remedy) to get over the grief of loosing his mate and the stress caused by his ingestion of his blankies.
Vetting for ferrets is very expensive and they have a tendency to have more serious life threatening diseases too, which cost even more.
Please feel free to prowl around through the various sections and read through the threads, there is a ton of information there and everyone's friendly and more than willing to help you out if you have any questions.
Good luck, please keep us updated
ciao

[Jeremy's Boggle]

Thank you Heather. What to do for bedding is a real issues as he has had denim bedding since coming home this spring and that appears to be what caused the blockage.

I'll check tonight to see if I can get rescue remedy locally for him and the rest of our interior furries. Sitting here I've just realized that we have had a lot of stressers lately. I've been so busy handling them that I didn't notice the effects.
1. loosing Nefertiti this summer
2. getting two new puppies in Oct( one dumped on the road)
3. less out time due to puppies
4. we traveled leaving him home for the first time since loosing
Nefertiti which he didn't do well with
5. the vet visit

[Jeremy's Boggle]

Dec 26, 2011 21:42:11 GMT -5 Heather said:

Vetting for ferrets is very expensive and they have a tendency to have more serious life threatening diseases too, which cost even more.

I just wanted to mention that when we adopted our ferrets we established a relationship with a vet and discussed what expenses would be. I called that practice this weekend only to be informed that the ferret vet had left the practice. >:(So I was standing in a vet's office I had never dealt with getting a snooty speech about how he(the owner of the practice not his ferret specialist) ran a different sort of clinic than the ones we usually associated with, how my ferret was probably going to need surgery and wanted a $300 deposit. It seemed that the bill could be really inflated there. Luckily it wasn't and despite the snooty speech I think I'll continue to use them as I like the specialist a lot.

We have a large population and established relationships that allow us to receive reduced care for them because of our willingness to accept rescues.

My eldest son and I are in discussions about whether or not to get Jeremy a new friend. Jeremy is bonded to my youngest son and refuses to play with my eldest.

Nicole

[Heather]

Ferrets do bond heavily. It's sometimes horrible to see how careless we are with their feelings (I do rescue/hospice work, people often dump their ferrets with little care to their bonds with people and other fuzzes ) It's good that your wee one has bonded with your one son. It probably helped him a lot through the loss of Nefertiti (like the name There is an awesome article about raising single ferrets, written by Katt that would be well worth reading.
The stress of the recent events may have caused him to eat his bedding. It may be that he will stop once things level off. Good luck, don't forget to post some pics of your wee one
ciao

[Jeremy's Boggle]

Ciao,

Could you direct me to that article? I tried searching for it with no luck. If we are going to be single ferret people I will have to stay strong as I know there will be furries who were adopted as Christmas gifts being returned in the New Year.

[Sherry]

Here you go:
holisticferret60.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=talk&action=display&thread=71