A ferret friend sent me a link to an article in Pet Wiki about new advances in dog cancer, pointing me to the paragraph written by Dr Ananya Mandal in June 2010, which said …

“Queensland, Australia scientists have discovered a drug to cure cancer that has effectively worked in animals and is to be tried on humans in the next phase of trials. This drug is plant-derived and is called EBC-46 for trial purposes. The plant from which it is obtained is found in the Australian tropical rainforest. The drug has shown to reduce inoperable tumors in 150 dogs, cats and horses and a ferret to a significant extent. The drug was developed over the past six years from the seed of a rainforest plant found in the Atherton Tablelands. Scientists had cultivated their own plantation of the plant since forming the company QBiotics Limited in 2004.

Well I hang my head in shame

For the past 17 years I haven’t had any problems with my ferrets’ teeth. In fact, my vet has always complimented me on the great condition of all my guys’ teeth so when Seamus stopped eating his kibble, it never occurred to me that he might have problems with his tooth, or teeth even!

I wrote about Seamus’ glaucoma a couple of months ago and for those of you who didn’t read the article, you can see his blind right eye again in this photo …

I get a lot of emails from new and old-time ferret owners at my site asking me various questions about their ferrets, mainly asking for advice on what to do when their ferret is sick or asking questions about breeding.

Then a couple of years ago I read about Ferret Health Advancement at MSU.  Dr Matti Kiupel was doing a lot of research in a number of ferret illnesses, like coronaviruses, rotaviruses & coccidiosis. He’s also working with David Wilson researching the prognostication and carcinogenesis of adrenal cortical neoplasms. But, of course, with all things, money is necessary to further the research for these diseases so the department also has a page for donations.

At the beginning of this year I noticed that Seamus’ right eye was bulging slightly so we went to my vet for a check-up. The diagnosis was glaucoma There’s nothing that can be done for that and, as a blind ferret is not a handicapped ferret, it didn’t upset me too much to hear that he had it.

Chucky, my first male, developed cataracts when he was about 6 years old and it didn’t stop him from racing around the house. I guess if there was something on the floor which shouldn’t have been there he might have bumped into it but for the most part, he was pretty good at navigating around the house.

Thank goodness someone is devoting time and research into helping ferrets and the various diseases which so often take them away from us way too early.

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.