No wonder the woman in the logo is screaming! What kind of story is this…?

HOLLY MADISON MARRIES HER FERRET

LAS VEGAS – Holly Madison, star of Peepshow and Holly’s World, went to City Hall in Las Vegas today and married her ferret Sid.

Oh for crying out loud! I know that all of us ferret owners are totally besotted with our ferrets and, really, if I’m honest, WE are THEIR slaves. But to marry one??!??!??!

I’m sorry – that sounds really weird and I don’t want to think more about what she’s planning to do with Sid other than pampering him with good food, lots of walks in his harness and letting him to weasel wardance around the house.

Hmmmm, sorry to sound silly but surely Holly isn’t going to be sharing Sid’s cage. I can just picture her trying to fit through the pipes and lounging on the hammocks in his cage

*shakes head* The mind boggles!!! Hoohah!

Take a look at a couple of his pictures …

Aren’t they works of art?

The only thing I’m disappointed in is the fact that Hilary is in Sydney because if he’d been here in Perth, I would have grabbed my terrific trio and headed over to his studio for a photo shoot!

So, you lucky Sydneysider ferret owners … if you want to have some really great pictures of your babies, I suggest you contact Hilary! He will immortalise your babies in print and you’ll have some really great memories of them.

Researchers at MSU College of Veterinary Medicine are concentrating on conoviruses, rotaviruses, mycoplasmosis, coccidiosis and adrenal cortical neoplasms in ferrets.

They’ve discovered coronaviruses in ferrets seems to come in two forms — enteric and systemic.

The enteric form is known as Epizootic Catarrhal Enteritis (ECE or Green Slime disease) while the systemic form has similar symptoms but ferrets with this virus could develop masses in the abdomen as well.

Dr Matti Kiupel is leading the research into these viruses and said that they need a lot of sample submissions from vets treating ferrets which are suffering from either of these coronaviruses. They need as many submission as possible so that they can study the genetic changes both types of this viruse cause before they can produce a vaccine.

If your ferret is suffering from ECE then please tell your vet about the research and ask him to contact the vets at Michigan State University about where he should send any samples to them.

Mycoplasmosis is a more recent ferret illness which they discovered. It’s not fatal but is caused by a bacterium which makes ferrets develop a hacking cough.

Coccidiosis and rotaviruses cause diarrhea in ferrets and, of course, we ferret owners know only too well what adrenal disease does to our ferrets.

Hopefully people will open their purses and help to fund the research so that we’ll be able to protect our babies from these wretched diseases down the track.

It’s a shame that the news article refers to the ferrets as “onery”. It would have been far more helpful if they’d written a glowing report about how wonderful these ferrets are and how happy they make the Kansas First Family members. I guess we can’t wish for too much and it certainly is great progress that it was mentioned at all!

What would be great is if a future President is a ferret lover and takes his favourite pets to the White House. Can you imagine how funny it would be if, when he is giving his fireside chat or whatever, the ferret climbs up onto his chair and starts nibbling on his ear or licking his nose! Now that would be something to behold!

You know that old Asian expression “Slowly slowly catchee monkey” … well, I guess we just keep plugging away and spreading the word about what fabulous pets our ferrets are and who knows, maybe one day there actually will be a ferret or three in the White House, or in Number 10 Downing Street, or even at the Lodge here in Oz!

Now that would be something for all us ferret owners to crow about

I wish I lived in the States because if I did, I would grab my ferrets and head down to Florida for a holiday

Apparently they are opening a new resort for pets at the Walt Disney World Resort for dogs, cats and … wait for it … for ferrets too, as well as other “pocket pets”!

How much more fun would it be to go away with your ferrets for a fun holiday at Disney World, hey! LOL!

The first thing which comes to mind is adrenal disease. However, for the most part, if your ferret has adrenal problems, the hair loss starts at the base of the tail and moves up on either side of the spine.

Rat’s tail is when the tail is bald from the tip up.

I’ve been asked by several readers how to clean up a ferret’s tail as quite often they see blackheads on the skin and there are also scabby areas due to their ferret biting the naked tail as it’s so itchy there.

Well, a member of my forum has given us a great tip. Her ferret got a naked, scabby tail which, as you can imagine, caused a lot of stress and worry. There was the fear of adrenal disease and blood tests, etc, but at the end of it, a ferret vet suggested the hair loss might be caused by an allergy.

He suggested that she gets a tube of Ungvita, a product which is available at any chemist here in Australia and most probably available at any drug store in the States and any pharmacy in England …

It’s a Vitamin A ointment which is for mothers & babies – good for cradlecap, dermatitis, etc – so very safe to use and she was told it wouldn’t harm her ferret if it licked the ointment off her tail.

Before and after photos show the change…

So, there you go. If you find your ferret has a ratty looking tail, go and get a tube of Ungvita and put it on its tail daily. It should only take a week for you to see an improvement, with the fur growing back

I must say that I’m surprised that ferrets have such a large fan club in China. Well, perhaps not surprised that the ferrets have charmed their Chinese owners but surprised that the Chinese are keen on having ferrets as pets.

Having grown up in Hong Kong in the 50s, I was forever rescuing kittens and puppies that I’d find wandering along the streets and I always had the impression that the Chinese weren’t animal lovers. But hey, that was many years ago and things change.

One thing for sure, if I ever return to my birth place, I will be making sure that I find time to get over to Beijing and will check out both the Xidan and Gulou stores to play with the ferrets

I believe you can get one by contacting the equivalent of the Parks & Wildlife Service in your State. I’ve heard it doesn’t cost anything to get the permit and once you’ve filled out the paper work, the permit is issued pretty quickly.

I wonder why they’ve started to get tough on bringing ferrets into Tasmania. I know that you have to show any ferret brought into Western Australia to AQIS so that they can confirm it’s not a weasel.
A weasel? We don’t have weasels anywhere in Oz! Still, once the AQIS officer is happy you have a ferret, then you are free to take your baby home.

So much red tape and it probably won’t get easier as the years go on! * SIGH *

I got a scare at the beginning of the month when I saw a report in a paper from our Wheatbelt talking about a guy in Nungarin who has 9 ferrets.

That was a great story but it said that DAF (Department of Agriculture and Food here in Western Australia) had placed ferrets on WA’s Declared Animals List due to “their potential to become a pest if released into the wild”.

I couldn’t believe what I was reading! It’s not like we have a climate like England or northern Europe in this are – we have an arid, dry, hot climate and any ferret which escapes here and doesn’t get found would be doomed to die. How could anyone make such a statement!

I contacted Dianne, who’s the president of WAFFS, and she confirmed they were aware of this and everyone who is well known in the ferret world here has raised their voices against this ridiculous classification. Hopefully the idiot who started this without sufficient research will get a rap on the knuckles for an waste of bureaucratic time in preparing this report.

However it does pain me to see ferrets getting a bad rap and I hope that these two incidences are not the thin edge of the wedge.

I have always had a huge soft spot for ferret kits, and I would think that most mustelid babies would be equally cute and squeezable.  These otter pups  prove that absolutely!!  :D

However, I suppose I must do my research. Is the link between tuberculosis in cattle real/serious/imagined?

So here’s the article:

The Welsh rural affairs minister says she is determined to continue with a cull of badgers in Pembrokeshire.

The Badger Trust has been told it can appeal against the outcome of a judicial review that backed the Welsh Assembly Government’s plans.

But Elin Jones told AMs that work would continue until a judge told the assembly government otherwise.

The Badger Trust said the planned cull should be suspended pending the appeal on 30 June.

The cull aims to stop TB being spread to cattle, but the trust disputes it will make any difference.

During a question session in the Senedd, Ms Jones answered a number of questions about the cull, which aims to stop the spread of TB from badgers to cattle.

Labour AM Joyce Watson asked whether the Badger Trust’s appeal against the judicial review that backed the government’s plans would affect the strategy.

The minister said the work would continue until a judge told them otherwise.

The exact location of the proposed cull is a tightly-guarded secret

Liberal Democrat AM Peter Black raised concerns about the badger cull in the assembly plenary session.

He said that many local people had been frightened by government contractors and officials visiting farms in Pembrokeshire wearing masks and escorted by large number of police officers.

The minister said that eradicating TB was the “number one priority” for her.

The Badger Trust had asked for the right to appeal against the outcome of a judicial review held in April, which upheld the government’s right to mount the cull.

It argued that the assembly government and the minister had not shown that a cull would “eliminate or substantially reduce” the rate of TB infection, as the law meant it had to, and that ministers had a duty to weigh the harm to the badger population against the possible benefits to farmers, but had not done so.

‘Casts a shadow’

Mr Justice Elias agreed that these two points were “arguable”, and granted the trust leave to appeal.

“Overall, it casts a shadow over the impending cull start in Wales,” said Gwendolen Morgan, the trust’s legal adviser.

“This should give the minister pause for thought before proceeding, as to start a cull and then stop summarily would be likely to cause a serious spike in TB,” she told BBC News.

The largest study of culling anywhere in the world – the UK-based Krebs Trial – showed that unless it is done comprehensively, culling makes the problem worse, because it disturbs badgers’ social groups, inducing them to roam further afield and infect more cows.

At least 1,500 badgers are due to be killed during the five-year programme.

The UK government is likely to approve “targeted” badger culls in England in the next few years.

To that I say HUZZAH!!! How cool is that? And how wonderful that the English Army is happy to have such magnificent animals as their mascots

I’ve talked about the two ferrets, always called Quebec and Imphal, a couple of times in this blog – one post was about Ferrets and Soldiers written a couple of years ago, and the other, entitled Museum Honours Dogs and Ferrets of War was from a story I found way back in 2006.

Now I found another story about this dynamic duo. Their regiment was sent to Münster, Germany, in September 2008 and, of course, they went over with the soldiers.

And there was also another story about how, for the Queen’s birthday, the Yorkshire Regiment was presented with a cake and the ferrets were there for the ceremony! I think that’s great PR for our gorgeous pets

Apparently they have a cage which is outside the 1 Yorks guard room in Oxford Barracks. I do hope it’s a big cage! LOL! I’m sure it is and I would like to think that the Ministry of Defence would do everything in their power to make sure the ferrets under their care are looked after extremely well

It seems that two ferrets were donated to the Yorkshire Regiment by grateful people in their home county during the late 19th/early 20th century and the Regiment has always kept two male ferrets as mascots. There is a thought that during World War I, soldiers kept animals and ferrets *might* (this is unconfirmed) have been kept to hunt rabbits to substitute their food supply.

Nowadays, both Quebec and Imphal are involved in Battalion life, taking part in parades and even wearing their own uniforms in regimental colours.

They are looked after by the Provost Staff in the Battalion’s Guard Room.

All I can say to the English Army is ONYA!

Good on ya for having ferrets as mascots and good on ya for looking after them so well. I am impressed … and this is from an (ex) English Naval Officer’s wife – LOL!!

Wish more Army regiments would have ferret mascots

All pictures are copyright Cpl J P Williams

Who would have thought that otter pups had to learn how to swim. I imagined that it would have been instinctive for the little ones to go into the water and splash about but obviously not.

Love seeing how the mother looks after her baby and gets it to do what she wants it to, so that it becomes comfortable being in the water

A litter of three baby Asian short-claw otters were born at the Blue Planet Aquarium in Cheshire and two of them were white. Don’t those little critters remind you of a black-eyed white ferret? So cute!!

Apparently an albino otter was spotted in Scotland last year but it’s the first time white otters have been born in captivity. It’s believed the cubs have a rare condition called leucism, a condition characterised by reduced pigmentation in animals, as well as in humans. These cubs are not considered to be albinos since leucism is caused by a reduction in all types of skin pigment, not just melanin.

The guy wants to put HIS ferrets down HIS pants and James McKay, who’s considered to be an authority on ferrets in the UK, reported him to the RSPCA saying that it would cause unnecessary distress to his ferrets.

Hmmm, I’m not sure that’s a fair assumption to make. I’m pretty sure my ferrets wouldn’t be distressed if I shoved them down my track pants but, of course, I wouldn’t do that. Can’t think of anything more ticklish than having Mojo squirming around my ankle

However, the thing that got to me were the various comments about this story where they mused about putting …. yes, you guessed it …. RODENTS down one’s pants.

Why oh why is there this misconception of ferrets being rodents?!! God it annoys me that people don’t check their facts before they write about things like that.

We ferret lovers have a hard enough time informing the general public that our favourite pets are not stinky, aggressive animals without having to inform Joe Public that they are nothing to do with the rat family.

Grumble grumble grumble!

However, back to ferret legging. Perhaps it would have made more sense for Mr Bartlett to have organised ferret races for charity, like they did with ferrets from the Bristol Ferret Club. Mind you, I am at a loss to imagine how the ferrets raced against children down plastic tubes. How did they get big enough plastic tubes so that the children could run through them?!?!

Sorry – just my silly sense of humour

That dreadful oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, heading towards all the fragile wetlands where there are mink and otters, not to mention all the birds, fish and *shiver* yes, even gators in its path. How ghastly is that for all the wild fauna there.

Then I see that the ash spewing out of that unpronounceable volcano in Iceland is toxic and is threatening the animals in that area.

The American mink, considered an invasive species, has settled there and from what I understand, wolverines and sables can be found around Iceland so those poor creatures, together with the Icelandic ponies, etc, are susceptible to inhaling the toxic ash.

BUT … did you know that, according to Wiki, it is illegal to keep ferrets in Iceland?!? I wonder why? Maybe they’re afraid that the ferrets will jump up and scare the reindeer as they gallop across the tundra! Sheesh.

I hope the worst case scenario won’t happen and both areas will manage to get through with the minimum loss of wild (and domestic) animals.

The little “engineers” get put down cable ducts wearing jackets with microchips sewn into them which then send the data back to HQ. It seems like Virgin have a growing number of … and I love the term the article used … “mustelid mechanics” to keep check on their network.

There were a couple of very cute photos celebrating the one year anniversary of these great little worker bee ferrets

Got an email from Karen Potje who asked me to put this song about ferrets, taken from her parents’ CD called “Can’t Help But Love You, Baby”, on the Silly Ferret Stuff page on my site.

I watched, I smiled and I want to share it with all other ferret lovers

Here is …. A Song About Ferrets

I honestly thought she was going to be with us for longer, as she was so active when she was up. She used to power walk around the house, so fast that I had to scurry to keep up with her if I was trying to give her her medication or smoothy.

However I do think she had more going on inside than just insulinoma. She had a bump over her left eye — I’d asked my vet about it and she agreed it could be a tumour there but, without X-rays, it was impossible to confirm or deny. We thought that the stress of putting her under for X-rays would be too much for her so decided to leave it and hope it wasn’t anything awful.

She used to like cuddling us at night so I’d bring her up to lie next to me while I was reading but, before going to sleep, I’d put her down on her sheepskin as I was worried about her jumping off the bed and hurting herself.

On Thursday night she was sleeping next to me then I heard her breathing start to get rapid so I lifted the cover and suddenly she had a very strong spasm, where her little body shook and trembled and her legs and arms were sticking out.

I knew this was not a good sign so I put her on her sheepskin and covered her to keep her warm. I woke up around 1:30am and checked on her. I saw she hadn’t moved since I put her there so I put a drop of smoothy on my finger and put that against her lips, to see if she’d react.

She didn’t.

I tried to go back to sleep but by 3am I couldn’t, so I picked her up and held her. She was pretty much in a coma by this stage and occasionally she’d start jerking for a while, then stop, was quiet for a while before jerking again. I just stoked her and told her that Muis was waiting to play with her at the Rainbow Bridge so she shouldn’t fight it and just go.

She didn’t want to. She stayed with us for another 4 hours until finally it was time for her to let go and leave us.

So that is the end of the “old guard”.

The trio, Seamus, Angus and Mojo, are all naughty youngsters and their silliness does make me laugh; however I don’t have anyone left who wants to cuddle or who is happy to just lie on my lap and sleep while I watch TV.

I suppose they might want to do that as they get longer in the tooth but I’m in no hurry for that to happen so I guess I will just be content with having them weasel wardance around my feet

RIP Kahlua, and say hi to Muis and the others for me. I shall miss you terribly and look forward to cuddling you again one day.

I bred a very dark sable male years ago who was the son of our first ferret and he could easily have been mistaken for a polecat, as you can see from this photo of him. I’ve never had such a dark male since

CJ was just the most gorgeous boy and he had an equally gorgeous personality – he was my weasel wardancer extraordinaire and it broke my heart when he developed insulinoma and spent the rest of his days sleeping.

Well, enough prattling about CJ … here’s the clip of the bunzing taken in a forest somewhere in Friesland, in the north of Holland

So, first thing on Saturday I went galloping to the health food store and got a bottle of papaya (or paw paw, as it’s called here) leaf extract to give to Kahlua.

I’ve always enjoyed eating papaya and thought the liquid would taste something like the fruit … HAH! Was I wrong! Took a capful to taste and almost spat it out as it tasted like cider vinegar. Gah!

Okay, so I realised I couldn’t squirt that down Kahlua’s throat. The instructions said that it could be added to water so I got a small empty jar, put a capful of the extract in and added about 2 capfuls of water.

It has to be chilled before serving so into the fridge it went.

That evening, I put about 0.5ml into a syringe and gave it to Kahlua. To my surprise, she didn’t gag or look upset about having to drink it so obviously the diluted version was more palatable that the straight one

Sunday I gave it to her morning, noon and night, and I swear she looked like she had a spring in her step when she was walking around.

I am still giving her the TFPlus every day, and I also got a bottle of zeolite, which was recommended by the people who supply the Poly MVA and TFPlus. That goes into the ferrets’ smoothie with all the other supplements, so she get that as well.

So … let’s see if it really does help to reduce her tumour/s and keep her going in good shape for a lot longer. It’s early days yet and I really hope I won’t have to eat my optimistic words!

To be honest it’s difficult for me to say categorically that yes, it does work.  I got it when Muis was diagnosed with insulinoma and I gave it to her every day.  One thing I can say with certainty is that it seemed to help her because she used to wander around the house quite happily, she’d come and see me in the study when I was working and always wanted to be lifted up onto my lap, and if we went out, she’d be at the front door to welcome us home when we came back.

She kept that up even when she developed adrenal disease and started to lose the hair on her back.  She slowed down, that was obvious, but she still liked wandering about and checking up on me.

Her behaviour was quite different to CJ, when he had insulinoma.  He was diagnosed with it back in 2001 and in those days I couldn’t get any supplements for my ferrets. The only thing I could get was Colloidal Silver and I used to put some into their water bowls, hoping it would help.  I don’t think it did anything at all.

CJ was on pred and although he was with us for about 7-8 months before his final visit to the vet, I remember he spent his whole time sleeping and not doing anything else much.

I can’t tell you how it broke my heart to see him like that because he was the John Travolta of the weasel world.  His wardancing was magnificent and he was always so full of life and happiness before he got sick.

So, I am able to compare Muis & CJ when they were both ill with the same disease.  I would say without hesitation that I’m sure the TFPlus helped Muis keep her quality of life and made her feel more herself during the 12 months from time of diagnosis to when she passed over to the Rainbow Bridge.

Why I ask is because I ordered another bottle of Transfer Factor Plus from my supplier and I mentioned Kahlua’s strange symptoms.

When I got the TFPlus, I found a sheet of  Legalon milk thistle capsules which they’d very kindly put in for Kahlua to try, to see if that would help her condition.

They even googled if ferrets could have it and told me they’d seen several websites which talked about ferrets having this supplement.  What wonderful people!

I opened one capsule and spooned the powder into my daily pill box, which I’d bought for Kaos’s TCM years ago.  I then put a small portion of powder into some pet milk, stirred it and gave it to Kahlua.

It was quite amazing to see her walking around the house a couple of hours later looking quite perky.  Then a few hours after that I found her sleeping on her back in her hammock looking very relaxed. I think any owner of a sick ferret will know how unusual that is, as sick ferrets tend to just curl up when they sleep.

It seems that any ferret with problems with its liver would benefit by taking milk thistle and it doesn’t seem to have any awful side effects. However I did find a holistic ferret forum with a post about milk thistle and pred.  It was thought that the milk thistle MIGHT block the pred but this wasn’t said to be a fact.

I found a good site with information for dogs and cats so would recommend it to any ferret owner looking to find out more about this supplement.  There they recommend you giving it to your pet for 5 days, then stopping for 2, and continuing that for 6 weeks.

I’ll give it a go and see if Kahlua continues to walk with a spring in her step as the days go by.  God knows I hope she will!

I took her to see my vet just to make sure she agreed with my decision and, would you believe, Kahlua had another LBSD episode while we were there.  My vet gave her a couple of smears of Nutrigel and within minutes Kahlua came good.

Then, about a week later, I noticed that there was a bump over Kahlua’s left eye.  Of course I started thinking “brain tumour” and was stressing about some of the strange symptoms Kahlua had.

I had found her lying on her hammock looking out of it and although I didn’t think it was a LBSD episode, I still rubbed Nutrigel on her gums as a precaution.  She didn’t react for a while but when she did, her back feet had a claw-like appearance and she had a lot of “snot” coming out of her nose.

After she came out of her episode, I gave her her smoothy and she was very wobbly on her feet. As you can see from the photo, her left foot was still scrunched up like a claw and it took a while before she straightened it out.

She seemed to have a good appetite and ate her smoothy happily; when she decided it was time to go, she walked without any wobbles and her back feet straightened out.  It was like nothing odd had happened at all.

Anyway, I took her to my vet about her eye and apparently she has a cataract in her left eye and there was inflammation around it.  She had antibiotics prescribed for her and the vet said that the medication should help to reduce the lump over her eye and also stop the “snot” from coming out of her nose as the inflammation was blocking her nasal passage.

Since being on the antibiotics, she hasn’t had another LBSD episode but she did have one where she was lying with her gums drawn back over her teeth and doing the rapid shallow breathing bit.  That went on for a couple of hours, then she seemed to wake up and act as if nothing had happened.

It really is so odd and so stressful for me as I don’t know what to think and I honestly don’t know what to do. Those odd episodes come very infrequently (thank God) and she seems to be fine afterwards.  The thing is, she never has those episodes when I can grab her and rush her down to the vet.

I guess as long as she acts like she’s not in pain and still has quality of life, I shouldn’t be too worried.  She eats well, she poops and piddles normally, and if it weren’t for those odd occasions, I really wouldn’t be stressing.

Ahh the joys of ferret ownership ….!

There are a number of ways you can help, and you can find out everything by going to their site, legalizeferrets.org to see what’s required.

Imagine how great you’d feel if you knew that by helping, the Californian ferret owners manage to convince their government the errors of their ways and ferrets finally can finally come out from the shadows and happily be included in their families’ lives without fear of reprisals.

Since coming out of hospital, I’ve developed a constant thirst – I guess from the medication – so I’ve had cans of Coke chilling in the fridge so that I can gulp them down whenever I feel the need.

Seamus has decided that he, too, likes the cans of Coke so here he is, taking my empty can and stashing it behind the sofa.

Excuse the mess in the sitting room! I’ve been a lady of leisure for the past 6 weeks so need to get off my tush and start cleaning the house

I was taking her to see the vet in the afternoon so around mid-morning, I went to get her as I’d prepared the smoothy for her to drink. She was lying under the cover of the hammock and when I pulled it back, I saw her doing the same as she did on Christmas Eve. She had her lips back in a grimace and was breathing rapidly and it was very shallow.

My heart sank! I picked her up and thought I’d better rub some Nutrigel on her gums just in case it was some weird blood sugar drop symptom. I did that but she didn’t snap out of it, so I kept her lying on my lap, breathing hard.

It took about 1/2 hour before she seemed to come out of it and her breathing calmed down. I picked up the smoothy dish and put it on my lap near her and she just rested her head on the rim and started to lick tiredly – it was almost like it was too much effort for her to lift her head. I looked at her little face and her eyes seemed almost cloudy and unfocused and I really thought she was about to check out on me.

Slowly, very slowly, she seemed to regain her strength and I helped her stand so that she could lick more easily. She must have been very hungry because she almost finished all the smoothy, and there was about 1/2 cup of pet milk in the dish, together with the rest of the goodies I had added. Normally all 4 ferrets drink from the dish but here it was only Kahlua.

I put her down when she’d had enough and the poor thing could hardly walk. She seemed to go a few paces then stop, like she was exhausted. I was watching her so carefully and couldn’t understand why she had so little strength. Then I remembered Kaos and how she was when she had cardiomyopathy so I was certain that, on top of her insulinoma, Kahlua was suffering from a heart complaint!!

That made sense to me – the rapid shallow breathing; the time she lay like road kill, splat against the floor with her arms and legs sticking out; the way she could hardly walk now without resting every few seconds.

I felt really depressed seeing her like this and was so worried that when I took her to see our vet, Fiona would say that it really was time for Kahlua to have her final injection.

However … by the time I had to pick her up and take her to the vet, Kahlua seemed fine! All my hand wringing and heart pain that I had watching her look so ill faded into the distance – my little silvermitt looked like she was 100% normal!

What on earth would I show the vet – a seemingly healthy ferret with pink gums and clear eyes, and no symptoms of what affected her earlier. And, to make matters more frustrating, my digital camera wasn’t working so I couldn’t even take photos of what she looked like when she had these weird episodes! Isn’t that always the way – grrrrrr!

So, we went to Fiona and I told her my worries about heart problems and so Fiona listened to her heart, to her lungs and to her abdomen. All 3 sounded clear and free of any fluid build up, so Fiona thought it was very unlikely that Kahlua had heart problems, but she did say that if there was another episode of that shallow breathing, then we’d have to X-ray her to see what was going on inside.

Kahlua got her prednisone and after having been on it for a week, I must say she seems a lot better. Not quite weasel wardancing but certainly walking around the house more often and seemingly happy.

I’ve also started giving her some pet milk with the contents of a Transfer Factor Plus capsule added to it, with 1/2ml of Poly-MVA and 1/2ml Marine Phyto Plankton added to it on alternate days. She laps it up happily so I have fingers crossed that it’s doing some good and might even shrink that wretched tumour inside of her.

We shall see how she goes. I hope I’ll keep her for longer than Muis had with us but only time will tell.

Before Christmas she had some funny “turns” – she’d walk around and suddenly look like she was lost. Nothing like the dazed look I’ve come to know with insulinoma. Oh no. I honestly thought she had Alzheimers! She’d stand there and look left then right as if to say “Which way I am supposed to go!”

Then on Christmas Eve I had a scare when she had some totally weird breathing problems. She was lying in our bed after having one of her “Alzheimers” confusion sessions earlier and she seemed okay until I heard a really strange noise coming from her.

Her breathing started off slow then got progressively faster then went back to normal and it kept on going like that for a while.

I had her on my chest and was stroking her and when I moved her back onto the bed, my nightie was wet where her mouth had been. Her mouth was open, her lips drawn back and I thought I was looking at her death mask, I really did. I got out of bed, grabbed a towel, put it on the bed between us and put Kahlua on it and I honestly thought that she wasn’t going to be with us for much longer.

The rapid burst of breathing went on for about an hour, then she started making an odd clicking sound. You know you can get those tin clickers out of Christmas crackers or whatever – that was the sound she was making when she was breathing. There’d be 3 or 4 clicks then silence, then 3 or 4 clicks again.

By this time it was close to midnight and she suddenly went all quiet. I felt her stomach and couldn’t feel her breathing so felt her paws and her nose. I turned on the light and saw that her neck was arched, although nothing like Muis’ or Kaos’ necks when they were in their death throes, so despite seeing that and feeling her body and finding it still warm, I had convinced myself she was on death’s door.

At this stage Philip woke up and asked why I was snottering, so I explained that I thought Kahlua was dead. He felt her and said, “No, she’s fine.”

I scowled at him and said, “No way! She’s dying, or dead now!” and he said “Feel her!”

I did and she felt warm and was breathing perfectly normally. Next thing I know she wakes up and wants to get off the bed, so I put her on the floor and she toodled around before climbing into the drawer (of the chest of drawers) and going to sleep.

I was exhausted, I can tell you, and count that night as the worst Christmas Eve I have ever had!

Then on January 2, we were walking out of the kitchen to head for the bedroom and I saw Kahlua lying splat on the floor near the linen cupboard. I spoke to other ferret owners and they all thought it was a heat thing but, although it was warm at the time, I still had my doubts.

Took Kahlua to the vet and she checked her out and said there was nothing she could find and, since I had no definite symptoms, there was basically nothing I could tell her apart from her “odd behaviour”.

THEN it happened.

On Sunday morning (the 10th) I walked into the sitting room and found her lying on Zac’s bed, completely floppy and totally out of it, even though her eyes were open.

I took her into our bedroom and got some Nutrigel, rubbed it on her gums and got a syringe full of smoothy to give her. Well, within a few seconds she was licking the smoothy from the end of the syringe and seemed perfectly fine. I put her down on the bed with the smoothy bowl and although I had to hold her upright, she was licking the liquid up with great gusto.

* sigh *

I called my vet first thing on the Monday morning but she was away till Wednesday and obviously the staff there wouldn’t give Kahlua any prednisone without the vet’s say so.

So there we go … I was totally fooled by Kahlua’s confusion as it was nowhere like CJ’s or Muis’ dazed look. Then the strange breathing session and the way she lay “splat” on the floor – I reckon now that that was a mini-blood sugar drop.

I have a new sig file …”The more I know ferrets, the more I know I don’t know!” and I can’t tell you how true that is.

It’s my 16th year of ferret ownership and I’m still scratching my head wondering if I have it right and am doing the right thing by my babies!

To all my ferret friends – here’s wishing you all a wonderfully vet-free 2010!

Yes, take your babies to the vet for their vaccinations and check-ups but I hope there are no serious visits to the vet.

Let’s all have a fabulously illness-free year …! Wishing you all good, healthy vibes coming from my gang to all of your ferrets and have a truly great New Year!

With lots of love and dooks to all ………

The Mojosaurus is a feisty ferret – I have never known a kit to be so happy to throw herself at another ferret, like Angus, who was “beating” her up. I’m so glad that she’s not a shy, retiring type. Heaven knows she needs to be able to stand up for herself with the older ones!

She and Zac get on like a house on fire – he absolutely loves her and is incredibly gentle and funny when they play together. He doesn’t even seem to mind when she hangs onto his jowls! Crazy dog! As you can see here, they give us countless moments of laughter when they’re playing with each other

I wonder if otters in general are as souped up as these two or are they just a unique pair of whirlwinds – LOL!

Got her home and put her with the others. They all freaked and ran away!! Such wusses! Kahlua looked especially nervous about having her around and she decided she wasn’t going to sleep in the chest of drawers but would go to the sitting room and get under the covers of Zac’s bed there. How odd.

Angus and Mojo sniffed noses and I was happy to see that Angus didn’t turn into a bully and jump on her neck.

Seamus looked really uncomfortable and he ran away to the safety of the couch. Unbelievable – he’s about 3 times her size and yet he seemed worried to be around her. Go figure!

I got a collar and bell and put it on her and then the fun started. She started scratching and shaking her head, running around in circles, trying to get the wretched thing off her neck. It wasn’t too dramatic a performance, unlike the time I put a collar on Kahlua when she first arrived here – that really was an Academy Award performance. It took about 2 days before she realised the collar was on her to stay and she stopped having her little hissy fit!!

Okay, so she wandered around and got to know the layout of the house, then found her way to the chest of drawers and went inside to sleep. Quite amazing that she had that built-in radar and knew where her bed was.

I put Kahlua in the drawer with Mojo and the 2 of them tolerated each other – no cuddling yet but no stink bombs, thank goodness.

This morning there was a small incident when Angus tried to drag Mojo off by her head – boy, the stink bombs the pair of them let off were very pungent. Bleh! I put some bitterant on Mojo’s head and that stopped Angus in his tracks.

Come mid-morning, I brought out their smoothy and everyone was happy to lick from the same bowl so it looks like they’ll all be firm friends by the end of this week.

I am so pleased with the little one and feel that she’ll be a wonderful addition to the family once she gets settled.

She hasn’t replaced Muis, she’s just made my terrible trio into being an awesome foursome once again

It was just so adorable, I had to share it.

The lady who owns Sidney, the otter pup, works at a marine park so obviously has ample experience with otters and other sea creatures. It comes as no surprise to find that otters are illegal to own personally but I admit I was surprised to see that she said they don’t make good pets.

I remember the book “Ring of Bright Water”, an autobiographical book written by Gavin Maxwell, who had a pet otter called Mij which he brought back from Iraq and raised on the west coast of Scotland.

I remember *trying* to read the book when I was a kid but failing miserably because it made me cry and I couldn’t finish it!

Needless to say, when the film came out 9 years later, I refused to go and see it. I never have enjoyed watching movies about animals as I always end up sobbing, either from happiness or sadness!

I am a serious wuss

Cathy brought her two 7-week old albino jills around yesterday afternoon for me to choose the one I wanted.

My goodness, it was hard! They were identical twins, so look-wise I couldn’t say which one I preferred as they were both so adorable.

That left personality!

Cathy let them out of their cat carrier and one of them wandered out and explored a little bit of the sitting room while the other one remained in the cage.

The picture on the left is of the adventurous girl checking out what’s under the camphorwood chest

However when Angus and Seamus came to sniff at the cage, she stuck her head out and they touched noses. Cute!

Kahlua was totally freaked out by the smell of a new kit in the house so she scampered up onto Philip’s lap and just lay there, wanting to be stroked by him. What a wuss

Then we let Zac in and Cathy gently held the girl who touched noses with the boys and she was fine with Zac so that was the clincher. I picked her!

This photo shows the little one I chose going nose-to-nose with Angus.

We gave Cathy a pair of scissors and she snipped the hair off the end of the little one’s tail so that she could tell that it was my girl and then named the other one Pixie.

I still have to figure out what I’m going to call my new girl but I think I’ll wait till she arrives and I’ll have a better idea of what would suit her.

Cathy keeps her kits with the mother till they’re 10 weeks old, 12 weeks for people without other ferrets in the house, so I have another 3 weeks to wait for my little girl

Still, they say good things are worth the wait and I think she’ll be a very good thing so am getting quite excited at the thought of her joining the family

What do you think? Isn’t that nose just asking to have a big, sloppy kiss planted on it?

When I lost Muis, I spoke to a friend who’s president of WAFFS and asked her if she knew of any breeders as I really wanted to have another albino girl in the family.

As it happened, one of the committee members was a breeder and she had not one but two albino jills in her litter! How super is that?

I haven’t seen either of the girls but I got a photo of one of them today and Cathy, the breeder, said she’d bring both girls around some time this weekend for me to choose from.

Personally I’d prefer to have both girls but I know my poor long-suffering husband would have a fit – LOL! – so choose I must but hey, one is better than none so I’m all excited and looking forward to the weekend

Please note that I haven’t put any up because they’re political in nature or whatever – just showing you what’s out there cartoon-wise

MARC ROBERTS CARTOONS: Fearless Ferret -Ace Reporter

Fearless Ferret -Ace Reporter. Michel Foucault’s theory of power is a concensual and circulatory affair: All that is necessary for the triumph of orthodoxy is that ‘self evident’ truths are propogated in such osmotic abundance as to …

Episode 32 Kim Possible: Fearless Ferret (1/3)

cheeky Ferret | Ohnitsch Cartoons

Would you mind if i copied this and painted it on a pair of Jeans (for myself), the country i live in ferrets are banned and illegal to breed or sell, but we have some existing ones, i adore anything ferret… Have a great day! …

Episode 32 Kim Possible: Fearless Ferret (2/3)

Petco and Cartoon Pets! – Digital Caricatures by Angie Jordan

Petco and Cartoon Pets! Posted on October 22, 2009. It was a great evening at Petco and the first of the fall season for drawing pets. Many dogs were coming through the door, followed by cat and ferret owners. The staff at Petco, …

Ferrets In Hot Tub

Draw a Cartoon Otter

With its long and slender body, this cartoon otter also looks quite similar to another animal – and very popular pet… a ferret. Whichever you decide to draw here, I recommend you have a look at a photo of the real animals so that you …

We had a number of deaths in Australia during our winter just gone and the authorities came out with an H1N1 vaccination at the end of winter.

When asked why they were urging people to be vaccinated now, in spring, the answer was that they reckon that next winter will bring an upsurge of cases and the virus could kill a whole lot more people.

Scaremongering or truth? Who knows, but hopefully they will be wrong in their assessment. Just make sure you take care of yourselves and your ferrets and other pets and stay healthy over winter

Ferret gets swine flu from its owner, a first

Apparently a ferret caught swine flu from its owner and while the ferret is, thankfully, recovering from its ordeal, I guess all you ferret owners in the northern hemisphere need to be really careful that your ferret doesn’t catch that particularly dangerous strain of flu during the winter months.

Of course, it goes without saying that I hope all you ferret owners take care and don’t catch Swine Flu either

First time ferret owners … watch out for any signs of wheezing, sneezing, sniffling, fever or if you notice your ferret is just not itself and seems lethargic, please whisk it down to your vet to be checked out.

When I was a fairly new ferret owner, I lost my beautiful DEW boy, Mulder, to pneumonia. It was the height of our summer and no one in the house had a cold or the flu, so when I noticed Mulder not acting himself, I assumed he felt a bit lethargic because of the heat.

It was only a couple of days later that I heard him wheezing so I took him to the vet who said he had pneumonia and kept him in for observation. He was in the hospital for 5 days and I was supposed to pick him up to take him home that Friday morning but, instead, I got a call from the vet to say he had died during the night.

It transpired that our daughter had kissed Mulder on his nose when she had a strep throat. The germs got into his lungs, causing the pneumonia. Had I realised things weren’t right just a couple of days earlier, I think he would have pulled through. Instead I had to bury my lovely boy

With ferrets it’s always better to be safe than sorry!

The bad rap ferrets seem to get

Oh how it annoys me!!

AND what also really gets my goat is that so often the bad impression is perpetuated by stupid humans who show the ferret up in a bad light.

There is a bikie gang in NSW called “`The Finks” and they are all driving across the Nullarbor to visit our fair city some day soon.  Not good for us but my BP climbed sky-high when I saw the Finks’ spokesman being interviewed on TV.

He was your typical, ugly bikie gang member – revolting tattoos all over, bald head with a grey stubble glinting in the light, silly wispy grey beard on his chinny chin chin and what was his name?  FERRET!

For crying out loud – why did he have to chose that moniker?!  Why not Pitbull or Akita or Grizzly Bear? I’m not being horrible to Pitbull, Akita or grizzly bear owners, I just think the name would suit a bikie better than “Ferret”!

And then, to add insult to injury … I was watching some old reruns of an English TV cop show called “The Bill” and in one episode, two detectives go to see some smelly old homeless guy who’s their “snout” (informer).

They find him and when one of the detectives tries to hang onto his arm,  ”Missy”, the ferret he has with him, bites her on the hand before running away.

The old guy won’t give the detectives the information they want until they find Missy for him, so the next scene is of one of the lady detectives roaming around the bushes near the shopping centre, calling for Missy, and all the smart mouthed teenagers are laughing at her.

She finds Missy inside a dumpster (how does a ferret get into a dumpster by itself, I asked!), furtling around for food.

There always seems to be that very obvious implication that ferret owners are some kind of weirdos — tramps, poachers or whatever — but rarely do we see ferret owners as being ordinary folk who’ve just fallen in love with a very special little creature who’s managed to twist their owner’s heartstrings into knots!

Bah humbug

She told me she’d recently added ferrets to her selection of pets and I must say, when I saw the examples she sent me, I was most impressed with her artwork.

Take a look at these two cards …

A ferret wishing you a Happy Birthday and a Thank You card.

Aren’t they just so cute?

So, if you’re looking for any ferret eCards to send to friends, you now know where to go

She was absolutely normal on Sunday … she happily ate her chicken in the morning, she lapped up her smoothy with the others, she had all her supplements without a hitch and she wanted to be picked up and cuddled when I went to bed.

I did notice that her body felt quite warm when I had her next to me in bed, but she didn’t appear to be unhappy or distressed so I didn’t think anything more about it.

I know my subconscious registered the fact that she didn’t do her usual 3am nose dive into the food dish and it was the silence which kinda niggled in my mind. Then around 4am I heard a strange noise so I turned on the light and found her lying flat on the floor near the chest of drawers.

This was not a good sign, so I picked her up and brought her to bed with me but she didn’t want to stay so I gently put her down and she scurried around and then pooped. It was a very small, black blob and that got all the alarm bells ringing. I then followed her as she staggered all the way to the kitchen and did a small piddle, moaning as she relieved herself.

I knew it was bad so I picked her up and took her back to the bedroom, crying, and this woke Philip up. He saw Muis looking floppy and thought maybe it was a blood sugar crash but the fact that she was moving around meant that I knew it wasn’t.

Anyway, she went downhill from there. I was going to take her to the vet for her final injection but by 7am her little body was cool to the touch and her paws were icy, so I knew it was just a matter of time before she passed over to the Bridge.

Remembering how it was a similar thing to when Kaos crashed, I decided not to take her to the vet and just make her comfortable in the drawer so she would slip away quietly.

That was a very stupid move on my part.

She was lying with her neck arched, eyes closed, lips and nose white from anemia, and she was obviously in a coma but didn’t seem to be in any pain. I kept willing her to go and play at the Bridge with the others but she didn’t.

I finished my work at midday and she was still breathing, so I put her on a pillow and sat down with her on my lap and just stroked her gently, telling her it was okay to go and see Kaos and the others who were waiting for her.

She was still with us when Philip got home from work and I was really fretting about how much longer she would resist letting herself go. I was tempted to ring the vet and take her down there but if I moved her pillow, she’d groan and I didn’t want to add any further stress to the whole ordeal so I thought I’d just keep her with me and surely she’d go soon.

By the time I was ready for bed, Philip and I thought the best thing was to put her on the bed on her pillow and for me to just keep doing what I was doing, talking to her, stroking her head and just urging her to leave.

About an hour after I got into bed, she suddenly screamed a long, loud, almost primordial scream. Kahlua, Angus and Seamus rushed onto the bed, all in a very distressed state at the sound, so I had to get Philip to take them and shut them in the bathroom.

It was a terrifying sound and both Philip and I felt sick not knowing why she was doing this. Was she in agony? What could have happened? Did her tumour suddenly burst and that was the reason she was screaming?

She kept on screaming and I held onto her and was trying to calm her down, with no success. Philip threw his clothes on over his PJs and said he was going to ring the 24 hour vet and take her down there as we had no idea how much longer this would go on for and if she was in pain, we had to do something.

Just as he went to get the phone, she suddenly stopped screaming and died in my arms.

I was practically hysterical by this stage and felt absolutely awful that I hadn’t taken her to the vet early in the morning. Had I known that she would do this, of course I would have taken her hours ago for her final injection, but she looked so much like Kaos did and it was only a couple of hours before Kaos passed away peacefully that I never expected Muis’s passing would be different.

After we wrapped her up and put her in the cat carrier in the spare room, I started wringing my hands and fretting about what could have caused this sudden collapse and long, drawn-out death.

I know I didn’t miss any vital signs telling me she wasn’t herself but I was so worried that maybe I had given her too many supplements to keep her well and it made things worse instead of better. But logic told me that if the supplements weren’t agreeing with her, surely I would have noticed a change in her condition.

Oh it was an awful, really, really, awful experience and one I wouldn’t wish any other ferret owner would ever have to go through.

I know a 1cm tumour is pretty big to have on the pancreas of a small ferret and perhaps if I hadn’t put her on the various supplements during the year we might have lost her sooner. But I still find myself hoping that I didn’t do anything to hurt her and make her suffer like she appeared to at the end.

I shall miss the old girl so much. She was such a sweetheart and so affectionate and even when she was sick, she’d always come into the study when I was working and stretch up my leg, saying she wanted to be picked up. When I got her in my hands, she’d shower my face with kisses – it was almost as if to tell me she was happy.

I am picturing her playing at the Bridge with Bonnie her all-time favourite pooch, Kaos, Snoopy and all the others who’ve gone ahead, happy and pain-free.

I am so looking forward to seeing her again and having her chewing on my earlobes and pulling the hair out of my head, like she loved doing when she’d come onto the bed at night.

Philip buried her in the garden this morning and I will get a special flowering plant so that every time I see and smell the blooms of that particular plant, I’ll know that Muis is smiling down at me from the Bridge.

RIP my lovely little girl
Muis 2002 – 2009

Of course the other ferrets eat the food there, no problem about that, but just recently Muis has developed a most unusual habit and it’s ALWAYS around 3am when she does it!

She comes crashing out of the drawers, goes off to spend her penny or whatever, then she goes to the tray and I hear her crashing and banging as if she’s diving into the bowl of food. It’s really noisy and wakes me up so last night I turned on the light to see what she was doing and saw her flinging the food out of the bowl before she started eating the kibble off the tray!

Go figure!!

Why does she do that? Beats me. Why does she do that only at night? No idea!

Thank goodness Philip sleeps through the disturbance otherwise I think he’d be (rightfully) very underwhelmed by Muis’s actions

Well, looking on the bright side, I am extremely happy to know for a fact that she hasn’t lost her appetite and is chuffing her way through her kibble!!

I thought that perhaps it was a reaction to the TFPlus so kept my beady eye on her. She didn’t bob her head often but I told Philip about it and a couple of days later, he saw her doing that too.

What on earth causes a ferret to bob its head?! I checked her throat and head for lumps and bumps but everything was normal to my touch. I tried to look inside her mouth to see if there was anything there but that was not too successful. However, as she didn’t bob her head all the time, I assumed there was nothing dramatic happening inside her mouth to warrant a trip to the vet.

The bobbing happened for about a week and not often – once a day at the most – so what caused it?

No idea!

I made sure Kahlua had her smoothy with the TFPlus and marine phytoplankton added to it, and also made sure she had a small saucer of pet milk and the phytoplankton every morning with Muis.

So far, so good. No more bobbing. Is that because she had the supplements or did it just stop by itself, I wonder.

And my reference to naked bodies …. well, that’s Muis. Her coat is getting incredibly thin and while she’s not totally bald, the melatonin doesn’t seem to be kicking in.

Tomorrow will be the 8th week anniversary of her being on melatonin and I would have thought that she should start to show SOME regrowth by now.

Poor little old lady.

But all things considered, her quality of life seems to be good at present and she is bright and alert when awake so I’m grateful for that.

There is so much to learn about this mustelid and I often wonder how close it is in its behaviour to our little friends. If you take a look at the 2nd video, you’ll see that the BFF love doing the weasel wardance so I guess that makes it pretty close in some respects to our ferrets

In the first video you’ll see Jerry Murray is the volunteer veterinarian – he’s certainly been involved with ferrets for a long time. I first heard of him when I got Mash back in 1994.

The Nature Conservancy in Kansas – Black-footed ferret release

Black-footed ferrets are reintroduced at Smoky Valley Ranch.

Black Footed Ferrets

Black-footed Ferrets Make a Comeback: The North American Mustelids …

Once extinct in the wild, the black-footed ferret was reduced to 18 captive individuals. Today, this species now numbers 750 individuals in the wild.

Black-footed Ferret Dance

Plague strikes down black-footed ferrets | MNN – Mother Nature Network

More than 100 black-footed ferrets have died in recent months, victims of a disease we don’t hear much about anymore — plague.

Black-footed Ferret

I read the instructions (which were for humans) and they said that first time users should take 1/8th of a teaspoon in some liquid and then build up to a higher dose.

I tasted the liquid and it was like seaweed – a bit salty but nothing too gross – but I was worried that Muis would spit it out when I gave it to her mixed in her pet milk.

As I said in a previous post, the boys will not take their smoothy with the Transfer Factor Plus in it – absolutely not – but the girls lick it up happily. I’ve still been putting 1/2 cup of pet milk in the bowl, together with the egg yolk and TFPlus, but two ferrets can’t finish that much so today I reserved what was left and added the Marine Phytoplankton liquid to that.

I gave Muis her evening dose of pred and then put the liquid in a saucer and got Kahlua to help drink it all up. Absolutely no problems, thank goodness.

After they finished, I made up a bit of pet milk with Poly-MVA and gave it to the boys, who lapped it up eagerly! Since they don’t have anything wrong with them (touch wood), I’m happy for them not to have the TFPlus or Phytoplankton added to their pet milk.

I was looking at Muis this afternoon while she was wandering around the sitting room and, you know what? I think she is looking really well!

She seems to have lost that ‘teardrop’ shape and her collar doesn’t look like it’s way too big around her neck. When she lost her fur, the collar was really rattling around but now, somehow, she’s filled out across the shoulders and her neck size seems to have increased … and, as I said, she is looking good.

When Philip got home from work I asked him to look at her, just to see if maybe I was imagining an improvement but even he said that she was looking better than before!

For the first time since she was diagnosed with her insulinoma, I honestly think she might just exceed the vet’s timeline of 18 months!

If she does, I reckon it was due to the TFPlus. If she doesn’t …. well … I’ll be devastated … but I guess we’ll know by May 2010.

Ferret Lingo

Rat tail: May be a sign of Adrenal Disease in ferrets; swelling of the adrenal glands causes, among other things, the ferret to lose the hair beginning at the base of their tail. This disease is serious and any ferret exhibiting signs …

Ferret Spay

Ferret Care-Neutering your Ferret

Research by Nico Shoemaker from the Netherlands suggests that surgical neutering of ferrets can lead to adrenal disease. He suggests that rather than surgically neuter ferrets to use deslorelin implant which will chemically neuter them …

Emergency Ferret Care : Signs of Gland Disease in Your Pet Ferret

The Steps of Adrenal Disease In Ferrets and What To Do

A common disease in ferrets is adrenal disease, it may be common but it is also very deadly. I will explain some things about adrenal disease you need to know. The disease affects the adrenal gland and essentially stops it from working. …

According to that site I found with the dosage instructions, Muis needs to have 1/4 capsule per day

Transfer Factor Advanced Formula Plus — Small Animals 1-40 lb. One quarter to one capsule daily

but I was also mindful of the instruction on the same site

Note: Some veterinarians start animals on a small amount of Transfer Factor Plus for 3 consecutive days to make sure to not overwhelm the immune system, and increase the dose gradually.

I certainly didn’t want to overdose her with a whole lot of supplements, which might have overloaded her system, so I opened up the capsule and divided the contents into 3.

Silly me, I got confused with the statement that I should start her on a small amount for 3 days so made 3 piles out of one capsule instead of 4. Doh!

I decided to put the TF Plus into their smoothy and give it to all the ferrets initially and then slowly increase Muis’s dose by adding it to her morning milk instead of the Poly-MVA.

I’ve also ordered a bottle of Marine Phytoplankton from a company over east so when that comes, I’ll add that to her special mixture.

I have no idea how long it will take to see an improvement in her condition but will definitely be posting updates here as and when they occur.

It sounds like it’s a wonder supplement and there are all sorts of glowing testimonials about how this product helped all kinds of dogs and cats to recover from serious conditions.

There was also a testimonial from a lady who used Transfer Factor Plus on her ferret and it helped her ferret to recover from serious illness…

“My name is Karen and I have a small 4 year old female, 3lb ferret named (Moxy) in the summer of 2008 she had all the symptoms of renal cancer. Moxy began losing hair on her tail.I am so pleased. My ferret had a growth under skin sitting above rib cage and kept growing a common Adrenal issues with ferrets but, the Transfer Factor Plus seemed to be helping. I also added Marine PhytoPlankton and gradually increasing the amount – WOW these two products together had amazing impact on my ferret’s health. Moxy has much more energy now and her tumor is shrinking quickly. The rescue lady we got our ferrets from deals with alot of sick ferrets. I gave her a bottle of Marine Phyto Plankton. She has been using it for a ferret with bladder issues and has been very pleased with it. I told her the story behind the Marine Phyto Product, how it came about. She may begin trying it with her cancer ferrets. She currently uses Melatonin for the adrenal ferrets.” Karen Callahan Illinois

I emailed George & Sue, the people who supply me with my Poly-MVA, to ask if they’ve ever heard of this product and, as they’ve got a lot of products to help dogs with cancer, if they’ve ever used it.

What do you know! They stock Transfer Factor Plus for humans and a doggy version as well!

So, I’ve ordered a bottle of TF PLus and will be giving it to all the ferrets as a daily supplement. George wasn’t sure about what dose to give a ferret but, thanks to Google, I found a site which gives a list of doses for different sized animals.

From what I understand, giving Muis TF Plus on top of all her other natural supplements will not hurt her so I’ll let you know after a few weeks if the product seems to help or if it was just a waste of money!