Rocket & Peanut

A young girl was dissolving her "shelter." She was being evicted from her apartment, and needed to rehome several ferrets before moving to California with her boyfriend. (Ferrets are illegal in California. They are confiscated, & euthanized.)

Because Rocket & Peanut are high care insulinomic boys, someone recommended Zoo`s Ferret Sanctuary to her, for these two, when she saw the girl`s posts on one of the ferret boards.

Rocket & Peanut had some issues with ulcers, but have responded beautifully to treatment. Both are doing well on their meds, and have better appetites now. Both are very gentle, and have integrated well with the insulinomic group on the Meds Wall. They will be very well cared for, and very loved, for the rest of their lives.

I am sorry ----Until we have the $$$ for more pictures on the website, there will be none...Rocket is a sable boy, & Peanut is silver.

Peanut didn`t do so well. He continued to lose weight, over a four day period, and had no appetite. We saw diarrhea & lethargy, & wound up at the vet again, now suspecting an intestinal blockage. (He had tested negative for parasites)

The Xray showed a liver that was 1/3 the size it was supposed to be. Not good. The liver appeared to be failing. Apparently, this may have been a secondary issue--He now tested positive for coccidia--and the vet said he had had it for a while. Apparently, when his first two tests were done, he wasn`t shedding eggs, & it didn`t show up...

We treated all 65 ferrets, as a protective measure, and hoped to bring Peanut out of his slump. He really hasn`t been feeling well. Today, one day after the medicne was finished, Peanut`s liver failed completely & we lost him. He was such a beautiful, friendly little boy. Never complained about a thing. Took his meds well, went on the box, and shared his soup with his brother willingly, even though Rocket had just gobbled up a bowl of his own! A peacemaker, & a cuddler. This just makes me sick.

We are very busy doing daily testing now. We have never had this in our room, in eight years of sheltering!

If one can learn from a tragedy, it deadens some of the sting. We have always treated the room prophylacticaly, each year, because we have so many here, & it was suggested by one of our vets. From this day forward, we will treat all newcomers during quarantine, when we do all the other testing. (Although, it still would have probably been too late for little Peanut.)

We have alerted others who took in some of the ferrets from the same source, and advised them to test (again) too.

Rocket seemed to be doing better, then went sharply downhill. He wasn`t eating, the weight dropped off again, & we went to the vet. All tests were normal. He was grieving the loss of his cagemate, Peanut. He could not be comforted.

For those of you who think ferrets are just little animals who have no feelings, let me assure you they DO--and they sometimes grieve themselves to death, no matter how hard you try to comfort them.