Hi guys, thanks for joining us. We're just gonna give it a couple of minutes or seconds. We'll just see how the numbers are going.
We're already flying up such as our speakers, magnitude within the profession, we're already up over 170, 180, 190, it feels like a great auction that we're going through here, way over 250 listeners. This is obviously the hot topic on the veterinary press today. 290.
Oh, we're going past 300. Come on people, give me 300, there we go. So we've got to 300 listeners already, so I'm gonna start and introduce our lunchtime webinar to you now.
I'm sure like me, many of you will see the diary. On the computer and go, it's a ferret, and we'll go exactly with our title, Help, it's a ferret, and all of a sudden every phone call that you have is an absolute dire emergency and you have to deal with it straight away. So today we're delighted to have this lunch lunchtime webinar sponsored by nationwide laboratories.
And of course the title is Help It's a ferret, and our speaker has a wealth of experience. Doctor Madonna Livingston, who is known as the practise geek, qualified from Glasgow Vet School in 2002, and she joined our veterinary clinics in 2004 and has grown the exotic side of that practise, to the extent where it now occupies over 70% of their caseload, although she doesn't just deal with the exotic, she also. Soft tissue surgery and behaviour as well.
She's an exotics consultant for nationwide laboratories, which includes interpretation of results for many different species, and is always happy to help any vets with cases, which is always quite handy because if you're like me and you look at a set of results from a ferret, you kind of go, is this normal? Is this abnormal? Let's ask someone who knows.
So, on her days off from clinical practise, not content with having her filled during clinical life. She also lectures on exotic animal medicine. Surgery.
She teaches clinical skills in exotic mammals and rabbit surgery at Glasgow, and has an affiliated vet with Glasgow vet schools. She's nominated for veterinary surgeon for all the exotic teaching animals. So as you can see, it's a quiet life.
She's a diploma in parrot behaviour, which would have come in very useful during my childhood because my grandparents' rabbit used to swear every time he picked up the phone, . And she's been published on reptiles, parrots, and ferrets, including peer-reviewed journals. Her duties also include being chair of an ethical committee for two zoological collections, and she speaks widely throughout the UK on exotic animal medicine and surgery to vets and vet nurses.
She's spoken several times at the Scottish Parrot Society. And Scottish branch of International Herpetological Society, to owners and enthusiasts. She's a member of the Rabbit Welfare Association Fund, the Tortoise Trust, Clyde Bird ringing Group, the Scottish Ferret Club, British Veterinary Zoological Society, and the Veterinary Invertebrate Society, and it's got a strong interest in conservation.
And in all of that spare time that she has alongside all of these endeavours, she also is owned by 2 German shepherds, 9 ferrets, and 2 rescue cockatiels. And now I need to lie down after that introduction. So I'm going to hand you over to Madonna who can take us through how not to panic in the face of ferrets.
Over to you, Madonna. Thanks, Ben. That, that sounds that sounds quite posh, doesn't it?
Really, I'm just a daft wee lassie from Cumbernauld who likes to play with animals all day. So I've been keeping ferrets as pets for 21 years and . Traditionally, they weren't thought of his pets back then and people thought it was really weird and now they just think I'm weird for other reasons.
But a lot of people when they hear the word ferret, they just immediately think of a pet ferret was 1000 years BC, which means they've been used for working animals for way, way longer than that. So traditionally they were used for hunting and for hunting rabbits and you don't want the fed it to catch the rabbit because if the fed it catches the rabbit, the ferry will eat the rabbit and then they go to sleep and feds can sleep for 16 to 18 hours a day. So you've basically lost your fed it.
So what the hunters will do with them and certainly in the UK there's still a lot of people hunt with their ferrets and across the world, people do hunt with them, but you have to be careful because in certain countries as illegal and to hunt with ferrets. And certain countries you. So really, if you've got an owner that is a fedor or a rabbit, what they do is they put their ferret down the hole into the rabbit warren the nets over all the entrances the next so they find and the fighter's job is to chase the rabbit into the net and then it should be the hunter that dispatches the rabbit.
I know this isn't a ferret, but I can find a picture of a ferret with a rodent, but ferrets can also be used to kill rats. My first two pet ferrets came from a guy in Ky that used to beat them, and he was a ratter and the ferrets would actually will kill the rats. The way that we can use the ferrets for working is that the ferrets will flush rodents or rabbits out for birds of prey to catch as well.
And it's important that we know whether if they're working ferrets when you think about it if you could put your hands down a bottle to pick up an animal, you really don't want a baby animal. So even working ferrets generally speaking are quite quite placid, but it is important that we know if they're working ferrets because there are certain conditions like rat by abscesses that are going to be more common and working ferrets than than a pet. But since the 80s, we've now found that ferrets have become much, much more popular as pets, and that is serious he's kept, he was the fed at the second on my shoulder in the first slide.
And they really do make great, great family pets. So basically a cross between a kitten and a puppy that never grows up. This is again is serious.
This is my husband Ian per man. I'm sure you all feel sorry for him, but he didn't particularly want to get feds because he was nervous feds. He is also a bit.
I think that's a pretty jammy smile that he's got on his face there. And also FedEx can be used for destressing your staff. So this is me, one of one of my vets that I work with and she gets nicknamed Min Madonna and she's under my phone as many me and that she was playing with a letter of fairs that I had read this year.
People also show their feds and this is one of my clients feds and they get really quite into and they still was. Unfortunately, something called ferret legging is still happening as well and it's basically the feds into guys trousers tie the end of the trousers and it's basically whoever can stand the fed it being in there the longest is the one that wins, which to be honest to me just sounds animal abuse. So why should you care about ferrets?
Well, the human animal bone doesn't stop with a dog or a cat. It can be any type of animal and the vast majority of pet owners when surveyed view their pet as a member of his family. So quite rightly expect the same high level of care for their fit as they do for their dog or cat.
And to me that it's basically our natures Prozac. I mean how can not like a species that giggles when it's happy. So biological data feds live on average 7 or 8 years making it to 12 as an abnormal and their gestation is 42 days.
This is one of my cats newborn and they don't open their eyes until they're about 32 to 35 days old, which is quite long, but they have evolved to live underground. And if you don't need to open your eyes unless you're ready to leave the nest. So what do you feeds on.
There are, there has been a big move recently for people feeding raw meat to their ferrets and that can include short or it can include pre killed defrosted rodents or indeed would kill. But there are some potential issues with that, unfortunately, and this year in particular, I've had to euthanize quite a few fed cats that basically have records metabolic bone disease because they've been feed primarily on meat. So it's an unbalanced and appropriate raw feeding.
And you can see the folding fractures in the cat's legs and you often get folding fractures along the back where the thing has managed to fracture it back just by trying to walk. So these cats are quite severe, that I do euthanize them. You will get some owners that want to treat and if it's not too severe and it can walk, and then you've got the option of using all so it was liquid calcium, some D3 in it.
But also what we've got to remember is that ferrets are very good at hiding pain. So my attitude is if it hurts me, that it's going to hurt them just because we can't understand their behaviour and to tell obviously when it's in pain doesn't mean that we shouldn't very adequate analgesia. So the type of analgesics that I'll use ferrets are met or meloxicam at 0.1 to 0.3 makes per kg once a day.
Tramadol. I often dissolve down the capsules because the liquid is exceptionally expensive at the moment, and I'll go in with 5 to 10 megs per kg twice a day. Begesic, if you use the or care if you use the pills rather than the multi-dose bottles, you can actually give it transmucoally so you can give it orderly and you can see the doors on the screen there.
Gabapentin, if you've got a nerve pain. 3 to 5 megs per kg every hours for you tend to find because often when I'm, I'm using gabapentin exotic species, I've got 10 makes per kg, but you do get quite a lot of sedation at the higher level and gabapentin and ferrets. I have added come on in there.
I don't tend to use it very often and ferrets because they are very, very sensitive to opioids and they tend to get sedated and respiratory depression. And but if I had to give it, then I would be giving it a very low dose. And if you put that in for completeness, local anaesthesia and so if you get any wounds, and then you can use cream just to help for multimodal analgesia because they should be multimodal analgesia.
We don't really know for sure with some, some drugs, the pharma explained it. So we have lots of different drugs that hit the pain. And pathway at different points and then we can get away with lower doses and then lower risk of side effects.
Another risk of raw feeding this as a fed spleen. But another risk of raw feeding, unfortunately at the moment, and as mycobacteria. Sorry, I shouldn't say that the moment.
It's just a risk of it, especially if it's inappropriate raw feeding and it's not being kept in such a manner to kill off any of the bacteria like deep freezing for 15 days. They are 30 days. And I have had to euthanasia gel last year with mycobacteria avium, which they can get from eating unpasteurized data which they shouldn't be eating anyway because of lactose intolerant but infected meat and would kill.
And because then this can be a zoonotic, then we do recommend euthanizing any animal that has been diagnosed with it. So what I feed my ferrets? Well, There are commercial foods out there.
Some are better than others, but the end of the day we're legally obliged to feed their animals appropriately and fed its develop an obsession with food certain food types at very young age. It's almost like the imprint on it. So I always feed a mixture because if you're breeding and then you're rehoming.
And they want to change the food or, you know, there's a manufacturing issue and one of the brand that you normally you can't get, they can sometimes starve themselves. So currently I'm feeding a mixture of James will beloved complete ferret food purchase complete ferret foods mixed together and I really like the nature's menu kittens because it's very, very high in protein and fat, which is what feds needs. Sometimes we'll get them boiled eggs and shell to play with and they will eat them.
I do advise against raw eggs as been shown to cause some timing deficiencies, malt vitamin pieces are handy as distraction techniques and some of them do like to use a cat den to choose to help clean their teeth. However, what's was that must come out and fed it have an exceptionally fast transit time and talking, you know, most the backsides and 3 hours or less and as normal for them to have this kind of Mr. Whippy shape soft performed as they're on a whole free diet, then they tend to be a little bit drier because you've got some of the far in there.
So just a very quick quiz through the husbandry, traditional housing, a lot of the working ferrets were kept and old rabbit hutches and as you'll see later, there are quite a playful species. So that's just really not appropriate. And the cage here that I'm circling with my mice is probably better for elderly ferrets because if you've got young ferrets and I really need to be a lot of the time.
And, but you can get purpose made cages now for your pet ferrets and fed it's country to do like to claim and they do like to go up and run along ledges. But some people really go to town on it and they're quite inventive and their fair enclosures. So this is an example of the enclosure I use for my fed outdoors.
It's a checking kiss 9 ft long, 6 ft 5 ft tall and really if we got them might say, we recommend them having a raised sleeping area. So my favourite posh because I use this as their indoor toilet and they've got litre tree in here and then they have their letter trees underneath I say as well and they've got plenty of floor space. The feds do like hammocks.
They do like things to sleep in and curl up together. And currently the devices that you should be providing one hammock per ferret in case they don't sleep together. But invariably you'll find them all piled into the one hammock on top of each other fast asleep and you've got absolutely no idea how that can be possibly comfortable, especially if the fed at the bottom of the pile.
So I first start to keep ferrets as a student, as a student, and they are the perfect pet because they sleep for 16 to 18 hours a day. Ferrets are either fast asleep or in constant motion. And to such an extent they can form such deep sleeps like honey corners because sometimes you can pick them up and you can shake them and they're still fast asleep.
They've just gone into a complete. Deep dead sleep and that can really worry people. But you can just assure them that is actually quite normal and ferrets.
And I frequently asking can ferrets live with other pets? Well, they shouldn't be living with pre species because they're a predator. But certainly if they're raised with other species, then they can get on quite well with them.
My first fed it just to play tag with my cats they run up and down the stairs and chase each other and take turns and who was the chaser and who was the chas. And currently one of my German shepherds, Vita likes to play with the ferrets and she plays and with sweat them at them. She can't understand why they don't play about back, but they like to hang off for bandana.
And I think some of the play behaviours why they've developed this reputation because that it's normal invitation to play to run at you with their mouth open, but you can see that their teeth are covered. OK, if they're angry and they're they're attack, they're beating their teeth are showing their weapons, but they tend to jump on you and then the debate we and then they jump back and Unless you know the normal behaviour for a species, I think it could be quite intimidating if an animal you're not familiar with runs at you with its mouth open. And studies have shown that they're better kept.
With at least one other fed it because they do play so much and that way, at least if you're not there, and they do make up that they can play with each other and they roll out and the weasel or dance. The reason I picked this picture is the bottle brush tail. Bottle brush tail, they generally speaking is a sign of over arousal.
So it can be excitement and the vast majority of times it's excitement. You have to take it in context to the other behaviour that the Fed is displaying because if they're very frightened, they're very angry, they will develop this pile or action on the tail. And so if the ferret was is angry or scared or hissing at you, partly the bark.
I've never heard a ferret bark. I've heard a few hiss, but you can see this feds mouth is nice and relaxed. If it was angry or scared, then it would be beating its teeth.
They do like to play with toys and they are quite, they are quite playful. I like these fashion type toys and I call them fashion for ferrets and they jump up and try to catch it and then they wrestle with it. And this is serious of a walk in the park.
They do have, when you look at anatomy of a ferret, their neck is very white. In fact, their neck is wider than their head. So you can't keep buster collars on them.
And. You really an it shaped harnesses as the best way to go because if you put a you can buy colour for feds, they're going to come off. So what's in the name, the Latin for ferrets mostly to heal, which literally translates to weasel, stinky thief.
And actually it's it's quite an accurate name because they are thieves. If the free room, they're going to get themselves into all sorts of mischief if they can get their teeth in it, it belongs to them and they do like to cash things. And what I mean by that is they like to hide them.
They also are obsessed with rubber, like totally obsessed. They will eat elastic bands, hair bubbles. They will chew the rubber off of hairbrushes.
And can lead to foreign bodies, which we'll discuss later. Bizarrely as well, despite the fact that they are obligate carnivores, and with having such a fast transit time, they do need to have cons constant access to food. And they like to steal things that you wouldn't expect them to.
So I had one of my clientsed used to steal potatoes from the kitchen and would run and hide them so far and she would have to go and try and fish them out. And of course they're inside the sofa because they like to go underneath and the hair. OK.
And if they can get into something, then they will investigate it and handbags or or you know. Shopping bags, anything like that that they can get inside. And basically anywhere you do not want your fed it to go that is where they're going to go.
And their mischievous nature, although it is very indeed it can lead to trouble. They do like to crawl inside washing. They do like to crawl inside the tumble dryer, you know, fed it versus re cleaner as well as something you have to be aware of.
So that's an extremely fast run through the husbandry because I think it's it's important that we understand how these animals are being kept and be able to advise our owners appropriately on it. And one of the most common things I get when I'm talking to vets and that students about exotic animal species is that they go into panic mode when presented with these things and it's almost like we forget that we vets and we've got transmitable skills and pretty much the same clinical exam. It's the same body systems that you're going to be examining and a fear that as you would as a cat as a dog.
But I would point out is that ferrets do have quite poor eyesight. They've got really good sense of smell and they've got really good hearing, but their eyesight's not great. And again, if we think back to these animals evolve, that makes sense because they're going to be hunting and tunnels.
That's that's why they've evolved to be that shape. So they don't particularly need to have really good eyesight, but you do need to be able to smell well and hear well. What that means from our clinician's point of view is that if you sleep in a carrier and you open up and shove your hand in and the fed doesn't know you, then you could very well get a nap or a bite from a frightened.
But we can use the fact that they are really noisy by just opening up the cage and chatting to them and usually quite easily commbling out to see what you're up to. Ferrets can catch human flu, so anybody and the staff that are got severe cold like or flu-like symptoms either shouldn't be involved in handling the ferret or should be wearing a mask. Thank you, ideally gloves.
I think it's really important in this day and age that we remember that there's in exotic animal medicine and very few things and therefore very few things licence and ferrets. So we do need to get cascade forms signed to have informed consent. In the UK, we just have to have a lifetime form signed, but we should be discussing the use of any new product and and these animals with their owners and any potential side effects that we're aware of.
If we're admits, you have to remember they are escape artists. Basically, if they can get their head through something, their body will follow. I've had two gels that have escaped from my own gels.
So, she just said female ferrets to gel, a male fed it's a hope. That escape from virtually every enclosure that I kept them in. The only thing that you can get the check and run.
In the UK there's no licence vaccinations for ferrets, but and feds distemper is 100% fatal. OK. It's not even 100% fatal in dogs.
So especially if these owners are working their ferrets or they're going to be walking their ferret's a lot, then we really should be recommending that the cats get vaccinated against the stemper. Currently I use either no back DHPPI. Or carnage and DHPPI.
You've got to be careful what brand the use because some of these vaccines are actually developed in ferret lanes and they could potentially do there and the ferret distemper. And personally, I give my cats half half a dog dose and subcutaneously at 12 weeks of age. There is some controversy about that.
Some people believe that they should get a full a dog dose and they should get a few of those 2 weeks apart. Some people believe that you should get an annual vaccination of the steer and studies have shown that they can have antibodies for up to 3 years and a bit 70% ferrets. So I give my ferrets a December vaccine every 2 years.
However, ferrets can get a pet passport and so they would for that we need to be rabies vaccinated and in some countries they may be required by law to have the rabies vaccinated and that might be country and state dependent. OK. So clinical exam for me, regardless of species and when you start at the front and work my way back.
Ferret's heart is much further back than you would expect because we're all preprogramed or certainly I'm preprogrammed if I'm dealing with a domesticated mammal that I expect the heart to be just behind the elbow, but ferret's heart's going to be situated about rebate. So check their eyes, cataracts are really, really common in ferrets. And this is actually serious when he was about 4 in that picture and he's 7 here and you can see the cataracts much more hyper mature and most ferrets don't actually seem that bothered with having their cataracts because they've got poor eyesight anyway.
I am starting to see entropy and and go and go and see if any listeners have seen that as well. So people have started breeding ferrets with and selecting for exceptional long fur, as well as breeding what they're terming micro ferrets, which is basically just breeding them run to run to basically get small, smallest ferrets that they possibly can get. So I don't know what other health conditions we're going to be selecting for.
That it's naturally have a really dark ear wax and so it can be very easy to mess ear mates in them and they can even was really high infestations. They actually don't appear to be that itchy. But they also very delicate penny.
So you have to be careful if you're trying to look at with an old scope, because if you hold on to the penny too hard theoretically you could cause a vascular necros. So if I'm looking for your mics, I just take a cotton bud in their ear, take a little bit of the wax and then smear on the slide and have a look at it. And don't do what I did, which was a leave the the Slides with the ear mates on the microscope and then the nurses got very, very upset with me because for about a week afterwards and you're doing reptile faecal samples and you get fair ear mates running out and running across your slide.
I find it funny, but then not so much. It's easy enough to treat again so licence. I use stronghold and 150 milligrammes prefer.
I often just have a one-off treatment, but you can repeat it in a month's time just to make sure that you've caught anything that hatched out. So what other parasites could you see in them? Well, you can get flea allergies and ferrets, you can, especially if you've got a working fernet, then you could be looking at techs.
They're much more likely to pick up ticks. And Frontline Plus is licenced for use in ferrets, but stronghold plus will kill the ear mites and ticks and fleas as well, as well as a few other worms. We can take advantage of their massively flexible body and utilise either a little bit of sugar free peanut butter, and salmon oil or er to, which is a mixture of different oils and vitamins and smear on their abdomen.
And that can distract them because the balance against them and the quite happily like away at it, which means that you can get their nails done quickly. The front nails off the clip quite often. You can grow very, very quickly.
And sometimes actually I will use it as a distraction technique by smearing on the table for when I'm giving them injections. Dental disease is very common and ferrets it's kind of ubiquitous. Although some studies have shown that only about 8, 83% ferrets it was gingivitis alone, but you do get these fractured cannas and longs the pulp cavity isn't exposed, then you know, it's minimal treatment.
You don't really need to worry about it. But you can for when I'm looking at ferrets, my, I tend to just have them draped along my forearm and use my non-dominant hands just to lift their lips up. I just pop back a second.
But if it's a ferret that you don't know or you're a bit unsure of, if you scruff them and dangle them from the scruff but supporting the rear end, especially if it's a big heavy hop. They usually reflects you and that can give you quite a good view and the most so you have a great look at all those teeth. OK.
And doing a dental new gingivitis Katies are really uncommon in ferrets. So you could just have fractured teeth or a lot of tartar build up because all these animals are obligate carnivores. We know what owners can be like and they like to feed things that aren't necessarily healthy for the ferret because they're trying to be kind and give them treats and you just do a scale and polish or dentistry as any other species.
The one thing that I would add in is that . It is advisable to X-ray the dental radiography first if you're, if you realise that you're going to have to extract teeth. And that's because there is a very variable number of roots associated with some of these teeth and ferrets.
And so at least that way you're able to plan your extractions better. Gastrointest that I know this is a whistle stop tour guys. I'm trying to get through as much as possible in a short period of time.
I could talk for gastrointestinal disease alone for and fed it's for an hour. But diarrhoea is very, very common and ferrets and fed it's when they feel nauseous or they feel that they're going to vomit, the scratch and pull frantically at their mouths. And of course, as we discussed, they can have really long nails and that can cause trauma and ulceration and and they can rip the heart, the heart palates open.
So we do recommend if you've got the men and you know, they feel nauseous, just cut those front nails down and that will help reduce any trauma to the soft tissue. So what sort of thing can cause diarrhoea and ferrets? Well, Just the same as in any other species of carnivores, you can get dietary and discretion.
You could have food poisoning, could have E. Coli, and salmonella, Campylobacter. Or they could have eaten something that's far too high in fat for them.
I did have some ferrets that if I gave them some chicken skin, they would end up with colitis for a couple of days. So I stopped doing that cooked chicken skin. I should add if it could have been scraps associated with a rooster steak could be the owners decided to give them some milk, which we really shouldn't be giving them.
So in dietary and discretion is treatment really needed? I tend to go along the lines of pro cool and advanced for cats. So it's got a binder in it and it's got they seem to quite like the taste of it and it's got some probiotics in it.
Because we don't, we don't want to be starving these ferrets because they've got such a fast cut transit time and they will yes they can dehydrate very quickly because of that. But also if you starve a fair for longer than about 4 hours, then you could realistically be inducing hypoglycemia and these animals. But it might not be dietary and discretion, especially if the diary is carried over 3 days, then I think it does warrant investigation because I would have expected it to settle down, but then.
And sometimes you get this what's term the bird seed faeces and this and it does look like it's bird season and it but I can guarantee it's not because this is from one of my ferrets and it can be a sign of inflammatory bowel disease, but it can be a sign of other things. And basically these bets that look like seat are onigested starches or fats. OK.
And it's just saying that that bow is not functioning normally. You can get very muoids, diarrhoea. This is from the same fed just a couple of days later, you can see it started to go green.
And this this can this actually in this case it did turn out that this fair had in coronavirus something sometimes called epic episodic title. I can't pronounce it. And it's sometimes it's also known as green slime disease.
So this is Melina. You can see how black as and that again, just the same as your dogs and cats. It's a saying that there's blood digestive blood in there.
So that's going to be either gastric ulceration or Gulceration. So this is just a slide of common GI conditions. Excuse me, sorry.
Common GI conditions that you can see and sometimes just the age of the animal alone will make it. Differential less much more likely. So it's more common to see foreign bodies and animals less than a year old because they generally are going to play more, and you're inflammatory disease, which is common or lymphoma or gastrointestinal carcinoma, then you're going to be seeing them in the kind of older fed group.
But because of that fast transit time, then severe diarrhoea can very quickly cause dehydration. So if they are dehydrated, then regardless of the cause of the diary, we really should be correcting that dehydration and that use IV fluids and you can get an IV lane and fed it's quite easily conscious, just holding them like a cat. Or utilising that freeze that they do just before the yawn and gently scruffing them.
And you can see here I've got a blue IV lane in there and the maintenance fluids rate for ferrets is 60 to 100 miles per kilogramme per day. So that's, that's maintenance alone. And then you've got to add to your .
Fluid deficits on top of that. And for for one of the listeners, he's message to see about taking blood from tiny ferrets. I've never had tiny size of ferret take blood from them and the way that I take take blood is generally speaking from the cephalic.
This is conscious. And I tend to just pop a needle in and drop it out because especially if the animal's dehydrated, blood pressure could be low and then even using a one m syringe, sometimes negative pressure that you put on the vein can cause the vein to collapse. The other thing that you can do with very tiny veins is use the Mla cream.
So I don't know if you have come across and cream, but I love it. Because not only does it cause feel skin thickness, local anaesthesia also results in venal dilation. So it makes that vein bigger, and which is easier for you to get.
And when I'm taking blood from ferrets, I hold, although I've got . An assessed raising the vein. I do hold the far the foot pretty firmly and a massage it as well and that that helps the bloods to come out.
Often ferrets with gastrointestinal disease have raised liver enzymes. So just be careful of diagnosing liver disease on a one-off sample because it could be, especially if you've got gastrointestinal signs it could actually be done to that. Because they need to be eating and when they feel crappy, they often don't eat, then we need to sit and feed them and I stock the both of these the critical care carnivore or the Emirate exotic carnivore because if they don't like one, they sometimes like the other.
But I get that and not everybody is going to be able to stop these, especially if you're not seeing these animals frequently, then it's going to go out date. So, Just something like AD is fine to use just to get some of that nutrition and or you can make a go of their own diet and syringe feed them. If they, as long as you're sure that there's not a foreign body there, we're going into foreign bodies in every minute, then we want to get on top of that and nausea.
So we use meloroide.2 to 1 mes per kg 3 to 4 times a day. You can use mepotent at 1 makes per cake once a day.
On tips and for that I couldn't get it, but I believe it's back in stock and that can help, especially if you're highly suspicious of any stomach ulcers and you need to get this on an empty stomach. So give us a 150 minutes before you feed the ferret because it does need to set it. It needs to ask in the stomach to work basically, and it's 25 to 125 megs per kg to 3 times a day.
Pepto-Bismol is really useful in ferrets. It helps with any ulceration and it's 1 mL per kilogramme, which works out quite easy. It's 1 mL per kilogramme to 3 times a day, but it's also been shown to inhabit Helicobacter from adhering to the mucosa of the stomach.
And good old for water at 0.5 a meg per kg and once a day. However, some references will see you could just give 2.5 mg per kg, regardless of the size of fed once a day.
And for ferrets that have got chronic diarrhoea, I see they have inflammatory bowel disease, then I will recommend balaplex because I'm wanting that vitamin B12 and I will just use the cats. So he look back to muscly is considered ubiquitous and feds feds are used as human studies for Helicobacter pylo and it just can cause them to be generally unwell and gastritis to form and inflammation. They can get ulcers, but they can also get a malt and lymphoma, so mucoid mucosa associated lymphoids tumours.
And the chronic inflammation that it can cause can go into form of tumours to . It can be quite difficult to to be treating it for at least 21 to 20 days. I tend to advise this triple combo and the problem is because this condition is considered more this organisms considered ubiquitous and ferrets, then the We're not entirely sure if it's the primary cause of disease or if there's a stressor that's allowed this to come in as an opportunistic organism causing disease.
And if any of you are can only buy one book and exotics I strongly recommend this one, the James Carpenter exotic animal formulary. I find that very, very useful for and that gives you lots of biological data as well as on theseition there. There are other combinations that you can use for Helicobacter and he's my and meizes all on Pepto Bismol as well.
And some authors will recommend using moidine prior to any elective surgery for a couple of days because they are very, very prone to stress ulcers as well. If you've cured that fed of Helicobacter, you need to be warning the owners that if it comes in contact with another ferret that's got the Helicobacter, they can get reinfected. So foreign bodies and ferrets sometimes it'll be a partial foreign body and then you'll get to that looks a bit ribbon like or like a lowly stick here.
And interestingly with foreign bodies and ferrets, it's not common for them to vomit unlike with our dogs and cats. Of course, vomiting doesn't mean they don't have a foreign body, but don't let the fact that a ferret is not vomiting. Put you off having foreign body on your differential list.
And when I'm because often with ferrets with foreign bodies, they just get depressed and they go off their food and they develop diarrhoea. So when I'm examined it to check for a foreign body, then I hold them around the thoracic girdle, my non dominant hand and then I use my dominant hand for abdominal palpation and often it's quite easy to feel foreign bodies and ferrets compared to other species just because they have generally been quite a relaxed abdomen. And but holding them like this allows the organs to fall away from the rib cage rib cage and that we can, you can get a good feel.
So we've decided this animal has a foreign body. You can do radiography and you can see gas signs, you could use in contrast studies. Yes, I know that isn't a fair skunk, but I can't find us with a ferret using a mask for induction.
So ferrets with foreign bodies should be considered a surgical emergency because they seem to be really, really prone to perforation. And what we also need to remember is that sometimes the the clinical signs can wax and win because they can sometimes be slow moving foreign bodies. So what I used to needize my ferrets so sometimes I usually I use triple combo, don't ketamine the cat doses for weights and carpenter does have the doses for each one that he recommends.
I can certainly send that on and I'll add it in the notes. Carefully explore all the other abdominal organs when you're in this because concurrent disease is really common in ferrets, especially the lymphoma adrenal gland disease or insulinoma. I will.
If I'm not going to triple humble for whatever reason, I'll give a pre-meds of dormantar and then I'll masking juice with eyes of floating. And then I intubate them just the same as I do with any other species that so it's cats and they're a bit like intubating cats, so it's still I do use HB spray on their larynx. OK, and check the whole digestive tract.
Again, we do that with dogs and cats, but sometimes when we're operating from a species were less familiar with, we're a bit more worked up and we tend not to go through our usual routine. So the common foreign body sites and ferrets of the stomach and then the Easy for me to say then you then oesophagus. So the beginning the stomach is the most common and then the sites are less common as she could.
And you get that fed supportive care, analgesia, IV fluids and syringe feeding is with moist food since it's a week and probably on most food for 24 to 40 hours. So fair reproduction. Joll's come into season and usually March time and if.
Because I just over the if they're not res, they tend about half of them at least will stay in season and then they can get oestrogen and just anaemia and they can die from that. So what are our options for reproductive control? Well, we can give them on it stings twice twice in 21 years I've been bitten by ferrets and both things was a jail and both times was given a jail jack.
I've been betting by people were often being bitten by being bitten by rabbits were often never been bitten by ferrets. Or you can make to sectized hope. But what we've got to remember is that There was an evolutionary joke played on ferrets because m is exceptionally aggressive and ferrets and most pet owners aren't aware of this, and it can go on for 3 hours and she needs to get a neck bite and basically has g shaped penis.
Has to hit her cervix to stimulate ovulation and you know that the whole world drag the jail about there will be lots of screaming involved and it can be quite distressing for owners to see their fur babies being treated like that. So what other options have we got? Well, we we could start to clean them and I still dour clean if an owner insists on it, but it has been shown that it's likely to increase the risk of adrenal disease.
In fact, the air they're neutered than the earlier they tend to show the clinical signs or the younger they are when they show the clinical signs of adrenal disease. So what do I do? Well, I recommend to support an implants for both male and female ferrets.
So chemical. And if we implant in October, November time, we seem to get much longer out of them plants. And we do need to warn owners though that sometimes it can cause an initial hormonal search.
So the gel could come in season, should only last 10 to 14 days this season. And then it should stop itself. But as she could be fertile, so she could get pregnant during that time.
So she should not be around at that point because she could carry that pregnancy to term. For loss and hormones and ferrets. Well, people often see for loss and ferrets and immediately start to worry about adrenal gland disease, which is understandable.
But this picture of hope you saw previously and he had for a loss but it was it was on his dorsum. It was kind of overt area and that and he was, he was crawling the fleet. So that's a flea loss a flip and it is also very common during summertime for the feds to develop what's called rat tail where they start to lose a little bit far.
So only the tails often only the. Half the tail from the tip down and it grows back. That's just hormones.
So adrenal gland disease also called hyperreal corticism. We don't call Cushing's disease because it's a different part of the adrenal gland that's affected and generally speaking, it starts at the tail base and it progresses forward. And the clinical signs associated with that is the symmetrical progressive alopecia, about a third of them are actually some, some, some papers will say about 25%, but you'll get vulver swelling in speed gels, recurrence of sexual behaviour and frustrated hopes and the hopes could present with your obstruction because they could have prostatic hyperplasia.
OK. And the causes for sure we're not, we don't know for definite, but my understanding is it's going to be a combination of genetics, surgical ing and exposure to longer late periods. Well, the exposure longer late periods is because a lot of it's our cats indoors as pets and they're getting exposed to artificial light.
But we can't do anything about the genetics with these animals when they presented with, we can do something about the surgery. So I do surgical. I get to sign a disclaimer form to say that I've advised them that it increases the risk of adrenal gland disease.
And they think it's basically because these, the gods are gone, so they cannot send the feedback, the negative feedback to say you were OK for sex hormones. Let's just switch this off. .
And because the adrenal glands and ferrets, the sex hormone cortex, produces quite a lot of them. You just get keep getting this continuous flow and then you get hyperplasia of that adrenal gland. So the diagnosis is mainly clinical signs.
You can ultraso and see the enlarged adrenal gland or you can contact your lab for an adrenal adrenal panel and about 9 94% of feds affectedrenal gland disease are going to have a raised a raised level at least one if not all of these hormones. Surgery is difficult if the right side is affected because it's tightly adherent to the vena cava and sometimes it can actually invade into the vena cava and but for the left sided adrenalgaly surgery is often recommended. It could be though that that the owners can afford the surgery or it could be that they're, they've got concurrent disease.
So and noma or dele cardiomyopathy and they're not a good surgical candidate, in which case I often recommend to support and is off licence. But I wouldn't use that if the prostatic disease is present because as we spoke about, they can have an initial search a hormonal search and the last thing I want is to be pumping more hormones into that already hyperplastic prostate. So this is American slate.
This is an American slide because in America support an F is licenced as a treatment for renal gland disease and it can, as you can see, it does really work really well at alleviating those clinical signs. However, it might not stop the growth of the tumour. OK.
So, It could be that the tumour and then eventually stops listening to the brain and we start pumping out its own own hormones regardless. Therefore, the GNRH inhibitors is not going to work anymore. But as long as you discuss these things with the owners, and then it's all about informed consent, and There has been a study that's showing that they got Lennox and Wagner did a retrospective study where they found that actually the recurrence rate post surgery or post just treating with support and was about the same and the ones that they looked at.
OK. So I'm, I think I'm running a little bit late we finishing hopefully in the next 5 minutes or so. So insulin is really, really common in ferrets.
And sometimes they'll present an effect. Sometimes they look drunk, glazed expression. They can be drilling.
There is no sound associated with this video. This is one of my own ferrets who had insulinoma. He is trying to dig at his mouth, but he's so uncoordinated that he keeps messing his mouth.
You see this frantic chomping of these jaws. He was in a partial fit at that point. That was a that I actually I had to put him to sleep because he was no longer controlled.
And the diagnosis of insulinoma is is relatively straightforward. It's the most common cause of low blood glucose and ferrets. And if we can set their weapons triad, which is one symptoms known to be caused by hypoglycemia, to a low plasma glucose.
Measured at the time of the symptoms and 3 relief of the symptoms when glucose levels raised, then that's pretty much diagnostic. A blood sugar less than 3.3 millimoles per litre or 60 milligrammes per deciliter is highly suspicious of insulin and a ferret.
But what I and I do use point of care glucometers. I use them more for trends because and ferrets they have been shown to overestimate them. OK.
So for example, I did one recently where my blood machine said the blood glucose was 3.2, but my point of care cometer said it was 3.8, which might not seem like a massive difference, but as the difference between highly suspicious and not suspicious.
So surgery is currently the treatment of choice, but it can have complications and all surgical cases need to postop medical management at some point and no studies actually have been done or that I could find on medical management alone. And I have had the feds make it over a year on medical management alone friends Norma. So the treatment and currently the best survival times since the normal was quoted about 654 days, but that was with radical surgery and medical management.
So for medical management treatment is prednisone at 0.25 to 1 me per kg dose divided into twice daily dose, but you can increase up to 4 megs per kg. But if you're get ensure that donors are giving no sugary treats and supplementing with oxy.
This is a carnivore, which is quite like the taste of supplementary feeding. OK. But if you're using the red alongside dioxide, which will come on to the minute, then you don't want to go above 2 makes per kg and ferrets when they have low blood glucose, that that stimulates a sustained release of stomach acids in the ferret.
So again, to try and prevent ulceration and you want to go and we more Pepto Bismol and potentially you're on tips and. Dioxide is much more expensive than prednisolone and it's got more potential side effects. Feds are actually quite tolerant of prednisolone and they very rarely develop gastric sedation because of it.
They don't tend to get massively PUPD and they don't get hepatopathies because of it. But dioxide is quite better tasting it cause hypertension, lethargy, depression, nausea, diarrhoea. OK.
But it's 5 to 30 makes per kg twice daily and to add into medical managementple me really common again in ferrets, but it's actually considered a normal agent and any ferrets and it's it's a sign of extra modality sight of extra hemos sometimes the sheer size that they get to because again that that is a fair underneath there. You saw that spleen earlier. The sheer size that can get to can cause pain and stretched the abdomen, but we should be running at least haematology, these animals to make sure that they're able to cope with their spleen being taken out or being doing ultrasound guided biopsies because if the spleen noly, then that could be very well be lymphoma.
Lymphoma again exceptionally common ferrets broadly speaking, you get two types. You get the juvenile type, the younger ferret, so less than 2 years of age and the adult onset more said over 3 years of age. The juvenile ferrets often present very acutely because it's in the thorax and the coughing and respiratory distress.
And this is me doing a postmortem on a heads up this end, that's the heart and you can see how big this thymoma lymphoma is. And that's the same ferret with an enlarged spleen. But lymphoma can present any where we'd expect it some lymph nodes, skin.
And certainly we should be biopsying these lymph nodes to find out what we're doing, dealing with treatment. Well, there's lots and lots of different treatments and the literature, lots of different protocols which tends to suggest none of them work very well. A lot of them will respond initially to steroids.
But they will eventually become steroids and resistant. And so we've got to warn owners that also if the ferret's already been on steroids because it's called concurrent insulinoma, then they don't tend to one as well. This is the last last condition that we're going to was through guys.
Hopefully you are all still bearing with me. I think that's difficult because I can't get to see, but deleted cardiomyopathy again, quite common in ferrets was present often with them coughing. Increased abdominal effort.
And when you're examining these animals, you'll feel that you've got a loss of thoracic compliance. Normally the ferret thorax very, very springy. And you can diagnosis on radiography.
This is a lateral view and of the fed that you saw being examined the picture and it's a modified there you can see that there is a raised chea. And if we do heart score from between T5 and T8, that's fair it comes out at 7 and you can see that the upper end of the suggested reference range this study looked at was 4.0.
So you can control the Dale is cardiomyopathy with abandon works really well. So half a 1.25 megs and twice daily also made set up or you can give them tablets at 1 to 4 megs twice to 3 times daily.
You want to obviously try and bring them down to lose control do or get them off that completely. And sometimes I will then add depending on the how the case is going for core at 0.25 2.5 megs per kg once a day.
OK. So thanks for joining me on this whistle winter of common conditions and fernets. I hope that you have enjoyed it and you have found it useful, and not too, too boring to listen to, and I will hand it.
Back over to Ben. Madonna, that is absolutely awesome. I think I've learned more about ferrets in the last hour than I have probably, what, what is it, 18 years since I started vet school.
So I think, yeah, that, that has been really, really useful for me personally, and I'm sure the, the nearly 500 people that we've had listening live, would, would, I dare say, agree with that. I'm gonna, I'm, I'm, I'm aware of time, but I, there's some fantastic questions that have been firing in over the last hour or so. And I think some really important ones as well, so we are just gonna fire through them.
I'm gonna ask you to give whistle stop answers if you can. Not to put you under pressure or anything. So fantastic one from Jessica all the way from Sweden.
Scruffing cats is something that I've been taught not to do, as of course has been the case for many others in, in the profession. Is it a good way, is there a good way and a recommended way to handle a ferret, by scruffing, and is there anything else that we need to consider other than supporting their body weight? That is an excellent question.
Depends on why we're having to do it in the first place, but I'll often distract them with the sugar free peanut butter or the ferrione or the salmon oil, which means they're getting a nice experience with it. And they often will like that and quite happily if it's say I'm taking a blood sam. Then I'm really not going to be wanting them to be doing that.
And again, it depends it looks to stress. I think it will never twice come across fed it's that that showed that they were really unhappy with it. And I, I stopped it and I just wrapped them up in a tile, but it really depends on what you're doing because they are quite flexible in the sheer muscle.
So hopefully that is some sort of an answer. Awesome. I'm sure, I'm sure in keeping with, with modern living there'll be some kind of video available somewhere, no pressure on you there or anything, but Donna, but you're like that.
I will, I will get that that you find yourself with. Another really great question I think from Petra, obviously you touched on vaccines earlier, and one of the ones that that was asked here was can you use Nobiva DHP or do you have to use the DHPPI? Oh no, you can use the DHP.
That's absolutely fine. Yeah, it's just the December part of it that you want. Is that the same way you're just given a half dose, so half of the vial?
Personally, that's what I do. And some other ferrets I know do that but for and for years when you phone the company, they always said half dose and then it suddenly changed to one a fill dose and look at the companies can tell me why. But certainly with my own ferrets, I still do half a half a dose per ferret.
OK, perfect. And then another one from NS, how long should we freeze meat to avoid the risk of mycobacterium? From what I'm told, it's you should be freezing at minus 15 for 30 days.
OK, this is awesome. I like this quick fire Q and A. How long from Anna, how long does super lurid implants work for unneutered ferrets?
OK. Fashion depends on the size of the plant and it also depends a little bit on the time of year that you implant. So for example, the 9.4 milligramme implant, if you, the maximum I've had out of it was 6 years.
I implanted one more hos and and it was the November after he was born of the year he was born and it didn't wear off until he was, he was 6.5 years old and they tell you should only last about 4 years. The maximum of I had the smaller implant and the 4.7 in plant and which they tell you you will last between 18 and 24 months.
I've had a 3.5 to 4 years out of that implant. And that's obviously the maximum.
Some of them don't last as often. The good thing if it's support and implants, especially your male ferrets, it's it's been shown that the size of the testicles, will shrink down and if they start to grow, then. Correlates very nicely with their testosterone levels.
So the test will start to get bigger than you know that you need to reimplant. But also another thing that I meant to say was that studies have shown that ferrets that are chemically neuted with the implant smell less than the ferrets that are surgically, but also the region have more playful behaviours. I don't know why.
I just thought that was an interesting thing I should point out. Yeah, that is, that's really interesting actually, and I think certainly one of the biggest things is that you always associate ferrets with that smell. So, you know, a useful adjunct to those conversations with pet owners there as well.
I think, you know, as vets, we're always looking for other ways to get our pet owners engaged with the treatments that we that we engage with. So I would absolutely recommend if you're given these implants to get your ferrets to do a monthly measurement on their testicles and their. Yeah, just increase some, increase some involvement there and maybe have a bit of a laugh, another one from Jen.
Or sweeteners, obviously you touched on peanut butter earlier, or sweeteners like xylitol toxic to ferrets. Oh, that's a good question. And the reason went who because I don't know for sure, but I would, I would always er on the side of ca.
That's something I need to look into. You can take a bow with that one because I think when you put a super expert on a topic somewhere where they've not come across something, then that's always useful, but I think that's something that we can certainly look to coming back to you on that question with. Yeah, if you keep that person's details that I can get back to them, no problem at all.
Yeah, absolutely. This is a really interesting one, I think actually from Alex. And of course, you know, we don't have our dogs and cats for the most part in cages.
Is it necessary to keep ferrets in a contained area within the home such as a cage or pen, or can they be left to roam free around the house and apartment without providing that that special sort of home area? I think for their own safety, they should be restrained at least a room when you're not in. So when I was a student, I had the smallest bedroom in the flat that we were in with the ferret room, and their cage was left open all the time, and they ran about that room quite thing.
But because they do get into everywhere and they can get through really small holes so they can go under dishwashers, they can go into the back of washing machines and that kind of thing from their safety. Point of view, if you're not going to be there, then at least have them in a room or if you're going to put them in a pen, they can climb out of them if they can get the nails and things and I fed its climb up my legs to sit on my shoulder. So they do claim quite, quite well when they want to.
So from a safety point, if you need to be secured somewhere where they can't get themselves into nonsense, and their mind they fall asleep and going into really deep sleeps. So you can come home and be shouting on them and it doesn't mean they're necessarily going to immediately wake up and come running to you. So yeah, from a, from a safety point of view, then they do need to be restrained or restricted somewhere.
OK, that's fantastic, and an interesting anonymous question here, have you ever seen ectopic urs in ferrets? We have a 4 month old with constant urine dribbling, so I wondered, if it's something you've come across. I've heard of that.
I've not seen it myself, but I have heard of it. So yeah, it's possible. Again, I can do a literature search and send any papers that we find onto that.
Well, we can't come back as anonymous, but if they can they contact me, I'm quite happy to see if I can find any more information on them. That, that's fantastic. I mean there's there's so many fantastic, sort of fantastic insights and questions I have to say.
This is literally like, you know, ticking all of the boxes for me, from, from that side of things, . The, the Jamie Rhodes question there, what were the heart doses again for the meds for DCM? This will all be available on the webinar.
The webinar will be up on the site after about 48 hours for people to watch back. So all of those insights will be available there afterwards. I am mindful of time.
If you do have questions that that we haven't managed to answer in this, then please do, get in touch with us, and I think sort of the, the insights from this, are very much summed in from a. Point from Liana there, which is an amazing presentation. I'm in awe about this one.
Just out of curiosity, can we have a presentation from you about parrots, for instance? Help, it's a parrot. And I know certainly speaking as as that who sees plenty of exotics brought into me and I have that sort of blank vacant look on my face going, yes, I'm just going to go out and get a set of scales in the back.
I can absolutely advocate bits of these, you know, it, it really is useful. CPD and great learnings for us because there's always somebody who's going to bring these in and of course exotic pets are becoming more and more commonplace, certainly in the UK. So Madonna, thank you once again for all of your insights, and again, a big thank you to Nationwide Laboratories for sponsoring this, lunchtime webinar.
As I say, it will be on the site in 48 hours, for those of you who want to watch it back, there really are some fantastic insights. So thank you all for joining us, and we'll see you on another webinar again soon. And just, just to add to that and any questions that haven't been answered, if you, if you email me them, I'll answer them and send them back.
That's fantastic. What's your email there, Madonna? Madonna, that's M A D O N.arct.
That's A R K V E T S at gmail dot com. Perfect, fantastic. Take care, everybody.
Bye. Hi there. My name's David Sharp and I'm the laboratory director at Nationwide Laboratories.
I'd just like to do a brief introduction to our company. We're one of the UK's leading veterinary diagnostic laboratories, and we currently employ 16 pathologists based throughout the UK and we also work with a number of specialists like Madonna across the country to provide a service. An excellent service for our clients.
Our services are are designed for the health and well-being of all the animals that we work with. We've been part of National Veterinary Services since 2013. This gives us the ability to utilise the resources available through Different aspects of the business, while still delivering a personal service.
Nationwide, we continue looking at developing the business. This includes developing a robust team, which means not only, not only internally, but externally to ensure that we are meeting our customers' needs. We also invest in people and facilities to ensure that our services are modern and relevant.
This includes new equipment and also in our services which include a courier service provided in conjunction with MBS. Other services we provide include our Alavet service, as well as working with our vets on canine and phile feline life plans based on their genetic makeup. When you, when you're working with nationwide labs, we're here for you.
We have innovative products, technologies and laboratory services needed to operate an efficient contemporary veterinary practise. We're a reliable partner since the start of the global health crisis. We've been maintaining a high level of service for our, our clients expect.
Also this year we've invested in new equipment across all our sites to make sure that our services remain relevant. We also like to support the industry. We support the BSAVA, BSVP, BVDGS events, as well as other community projects in the local area.
Our pathology team is a key part of our multidisciplinary disciplinary team. Our pathologists work alongside our, not only our lab staff, but our office staff to provide a service so that you feel like you've got a pathologist in your practise. We're also keen on encouraging CPD where we offer both free and reasonably priced CPD sessions to vets and nurses.
Thanks for your time. Thanks for listening to me, and, I hope you enjoyed the Madonna's session.
