Senior ferret problems; Learning through trial and error
Its sad how much of a lack there is in senior ferret guides, care, and etc. Sure-you can find articles telling you “Oh, put pee-pads close by” or “make their area extra soft”, but here’s the thing-they never answer the most important questions.
Im talking, how do you help a ferret with arthritis, what/how can you feed them, flea treatments-do they get a lesser amount due to their fragile, small stature? How often can/do you bathe them when they get messy so easily, and how do you care for them after said baths? There's so much I’ve had to learn on my own with a copious amount of errors.
Although, I feel like perhaps there’s a lack due to a lack of ferrets reaching that age, because of all the backyard, and puppy mill-type facilities such as Marshalls, ruining their genes. I’m no professional, no, but unlike most people I tend to go for the senior ferrets because to others they’re “not fun” or “boring”. Many people abandon them because in their old days, it’s not pretty, and it’s extremely sad to watch an animal-let alone anyone, reach a helpless point in their lives.
For example-my ferret, Zoey (the 10 year old lady) often gets covered in her own excrements, even if I’m constantly changing her pee-pads. Her beds get covered in it, blankets-etc. And it’s because her back legs no longer work properly, a big contributor to it is her extreme arthritis in her hips.
She also gets her food all around her neck/mouth and I have to wipe it up. Now, she does try to scrub herself against a fresh pee-pad to “clean her beard” as I call it-but to me that just seems to make it worse but digging the grime in. (Remember, her food is basically soup)
Which, leads to my next thing. She eats soup, because for one, her teeth are brittle, and sensitive. I cant get them cleaned either-as there's a risk of her loosing teeth (although they’re in decent shape for her age, I don’t want her to go through having to get them pulled, or anything along those lines. A ferret teeth cleaning requires an animal to be put under anesthetics where I live, and for a ferret her age that’s lethal) But back to the point-she cant eat hard food. DO NOT feed your senior ferret those massive, cheap pellets. A senior ferret WILL choke/chip teeth (younger ones can chip their teeth). At first getting a brand with smaller pellets worked out fine, but over time even little-soft pelleted foods like Wysong and Ziwi became very dangerous for her to eat. I had to watch her while eating much of the time-and often observed that she was on the verge of choking when trying to eat. (Digging her feet/claws into her own mouth, buckling her head and shaking it, etc). So it’s just an extreme hazard as well. And these hazards can cause a ferret of that age to avoid eating, and thus, cause MASSIVE weight loss. (This happened with my ferret while I was away from home for a while. I would not recommend leaving a ferret that old unsupervised with inexperienced people. As said, I learned through LOTS of trial and error due to the lack of information I found online). I was very afriad to make her food paste originally due to the lack of nutrients she would get from such a watered down mix. But, I did it anyway during a week long time span and immediately ordered her the best product I could find for a ferret her age. I would mix in an egg every now and again, in my old diluted mixture, in hopes of giving her some type of higher dosage protein in the meantime. Though, I still give her an egg in her food atleast once every week/week and a half.
Soon, I will be getting her an oil supplement, and lotion. But, my research on that isn’t quite done.
If anyone has questions on any of this, please let me know! And if anyone wants to introduce their old babies, please send em on over
: )
