elderly ferret w/insulinoma

[Deleted]

I just aquired an elderly ferret(at least 6 judging by her teeth) and she has insulinoma. I know nothing of her history. I am not in a position where I can feed her a raw diet. The first night I had her (3/4/11) I fed her "Chicken Soup for the Cat Lovers Soul, Adult Light Formula" because that is all I had on hand, which she ate. The next day I went out and got Evo Ferret Food and mixed that in, She seemed to pick out the cat food. So them yesterday I gave her just the Evo, and she only ate a few bites all day and was zoned out when I got home so I immediately gave her the cat food which she chowed down on and perked right back up. The only thing I am worried about with the cat food is that it is only about 9% fat and I think she needs higher, and about 32% protein which is not to horrible. I have read that Insulinmona ferrets seem to do better on high fat/high protein diets... Is a mix of the Evo and that type of cat food sufficient for her? What else can I mix in to keep her blood levels more stable?
Please any advice would really help.

~Kim

[Sherry]

First, can you make her some chicken soup(just cook some thighs skin and all), when they are cooling, add the hot water to a cup of the Evo to soften it. Remove all the bone, and puree the lot of it together. You can freeze it in ice cube trays, then baggie the cubes. Get her used to having some, so you've got a high protein meal she'll willingly accept when she's ill.
As for the two kibbles, you will have to introduce the Evo slowly. Mix about 1/4 evo and 3/4 of what she WILL eat in a sealed container, and store for a week, shaking it frequently. This way, they take on the smell of one another. Then start mixing THAT mixture in with the old food slowly. In the interim, mix 1/2 and 1/2 and store, etc.
With the soup, you'll likely have to scruff her to get her to taste it, and then finger feed, then spoon, and then from the dish. But it's a good idea to have some form of soup for any ferret, just in case.
And to answer your question, yes, 9% is way too low in fat for her to live on. I'd prefer to see a different mix, but that's what she'll eat right now, so use it to transition her to something better.
Here's a good food chart for you:
moredooks.herobo.com/search.php?chart=ferret
Good luck, and let us know how she does

[miamiferret2]

i had one that did the same thing and he was so imprinted on kibble that he just turned his nose up at raw chicken, freeze dried raw, anything raw. it was frustrating. i would not give up.
if you cannot feed raw, what i did with my stubborn ferret was i put some EVO kibble into a little tupperware container. i'd put 3/4 kibble and filled it with water. then i soaked it overnight in the refrigerator. 3 to 4 times a day i would dump out about 3 to 4 tablespoons of the wet kibble and then smush it really well with the back of a spoon until you have like a mashed potatoes consistency. add water and stir it until you make a thick "kibble soup." microwave for about 12 seconds until lukewarm then add a few drops of linatone (lambert kay is a good one). do not add any ferretvite or nutrical! nothing with sugar! if you want to add the cat food that you have now into the soup and stir it in, be my guest. but then gradually put less and less of the cat food until you have only the evo kibble. my ferret would not eat this kibble soup at first so i put it in a syringe and force fed him until he got used to the taste. after that, he LOVED it! he would wait eagerly for his EVO soup every day. he would look up at us as if to say "where's MY SOUP!" LOL. this "kibble soup" kept my boy well fed and he outlived his vet's prognosis. i managed his blood sugar very well with this. he did not even die from insulinoma! i had to put him down because of something else!

[miamiferret2]

oops. once again, did not read sherry's previous post before commenting! there i go again! sherry's suggestion of cooking the chicken thighs is also good and it will add more fat to the kibble soup because of the skin.

[Sherry]

Hey, that's fine Now she's got two options !

[Deleted]

Ok sounds good :-) I will work on making her soup.Aalso, I have these freeze dried buffalo bite dog treats, 100% freeze dried buffalo... could she have these? I'm sure in the wild buffalo is not in their normal diet lol but I do want to try and give her treats so I can hide them and make her look for them so she stays active. And could she have dried fish skin? One of the petstores near me has these like salmon(i think) rawhides, they are the skin all rolled up into a bone shape. I just want her to have a good life regardless of how long/short it might be.

[miamiferret2]

do you know what her blood glucose is? it is a very simple test that your vet can do. if you are confident enough to take blood from her hind leg foot pads, you can test it yourself using a diabetic blood glucose testing kit from walgreens. blood glucose should be tested on a 3 to 4 hour fast (ideally but with advanced insulinomic ferrets it is sometimes not possible to keep them fasting for 4 hours straight).
you may be able to control the bg with a good diet but eventually the time will come that you will have to start giving pediapred. if you cannot control bg with diet then either pediapred or proglycem (diazoxide) has to be given.

[Heather]

I don' have anything to add to this as the suggestions that you've been given are fantastic and I no nothing about the dried products other than you have to rehydrate them to feed them to your little fuzz. Pediapred is an option once your little one's disease progresses beyond the diet stage.
I do want to thank you for taking on this little one and offering her a high quality of life through the later stages of her life. You have done a wonderful thing. Thank you
ciao

[Sherry]

If it's just for treats instead of a meal, then yes, you can use any freeze dried/jerky product. Just be sure to check the label for any added ing. like salt, sugar, etc. Salt isn't needed for these guys, and with insulinoma, you want to stay far away from anything with sugar in it.
Mine love their freeze dried chicken hearts, and Boris adores bison and ostrich jerky bits ;D

[Deleted]

miamiferret2: I do not know what her bg is. I have only had her since friday and have not found a vet I feel comfortable bringing to her yet. But I can use a home tester? I just prick her on her hindfoot pad? She is a bit underweight, I am not sure I am comfortable fasting her...

[miamiferret2]

yes. they sell one at walgreens that is easy to use. it is a digital one. it comes with some test strips and lancets and it is small. the one i have is tiny you can hold it in your hand. you will need two people. one to hold her and one to draw blood.

when you take her to the vet test her with your digital one too while at the vets. because sometimes the home tests are slightly off. but that way, you can calculate what her bg really is by adding or substracting. get the tester and the test strip ready. have someone hold her while you draw the blood.
clean the foot pad with alcohol swab. get a lancet that is thin (thinnest possible) so it doesn't hurt. put a little bit of neosporin or vaseline on the footpad (this will keep the blood from going everywhere and running into the pawprints). massage her foot until you get the footpads pink. then hold her foot and pierce the toe pad with the lancet. squeeze until you get a good enough size drop of blood so that it saturates the test strip line completely. then put the test strip on the drop of blood. then put the test strip into the little digital reader and it will give you the b.g.
it takes a few tries at first and it is frustrating at first but once you get the hang of it you will be a PRO at checking her bg from home.
always use a different footpad and when you are done just wipe the foot pad with peroxide and put a dab of neosporin on it.

[Heather]

I don't have a testing kit because the only fuzz I've ever had that was insulinoma was Calypso. I was going to get a kit for her but she went too quickly, another cancer claimed her first. The vet took her bg test from an ear. Is this also commonly done? I was going to get her to show me, when I got my BG kit but of course it never happened. I've also heard of using the underside base of the tail?? Are there specific methods, some better than others? These should possibly be discussed as insulinoma is indeed a common "side-effect" of feeding kibble and as things stand, it is still rare not to have ferrets who've eaten kibbles at some point in their lives.
I didn't fast Calypso, I found that she was too unstable before the pred but it was completely unnecessary as it was horribly low anyway. I was going to fast her when I brought her in the next time but the vet said not to, she would take it into consideration. I suppose if you want a true reading or if your fuzz is borderline then a fasting would be necessary. With Calypso it wasn't it was horribly low the morning I took her in to be tested even though she had eaten in the last 4 hrs. The last time we brought her in she had indeed fasted for about 3 hrs, her blood sugar was up in the low normal range....but she had no rear end control, was head weaving and looked spacey. When the vet checked her pupils one was unresponsive to light, so we did xrays. She had a cancer on the spinal column and several gray shadows showing along the spine just below her shoulders and at the base of her skull. The vet thought that the prognosis was poor and her quality of life diminished so we just never woke her up

ciao

[Sherry]

Here's a list of NY ferret vets on the Ferret Universe site:
www.ferretuniverse.com/vets/vets_results.asp?state_ID=34&Submit=Submit

[goingpostal]

My insulinomic wasn't fasted before testing, she was quite ill and we had been feeding her every 3-4 hours and when tested her BG was 38. I didn't feed raw then so she got a mix of canned Evo cat food (turkey/chicken 95% meat) and crushed kibble watered down and warmed up as a soup before her meds and another 2-3 times a day. She wasn't a fan at first but after a couple days loved it. She lost a lot of weight but gained it back after meds and a week of extra feedings so then we backed off to only before meds and once at night. Turned out she had lymphoma as well and passed a month after she got ill.

[miamiferret2]

I never had luck drawing blood from the ears. That is done with diabetic cats but ferret ears are so small and it is hard to get a drop of blood large enough. I always had better luck with the the toe pads.