Ferret owners avoid vets

RE: Ferret owners avoid vets

salome2001 — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:10:02 GMT

I'm not anything like good with ferrets so i'm leaving the discussion about spayinh alone, I just wanted to comment on two points from the original article

One: what percentage of dog and cat owners "never take their animal to the vet"?

and two: why would anywhere near 26% of ferret owners be vaccinating their against rabies in the UK? Are UK ferrets frequent flyers and regularly nipping over to the Continent for a bit of Parisian jill-action?? I somehow doubt 26% of dog or cat owners have their pets vaccinated against rabies either.

RE: Ferret owners avoid vets

Niall Taylor — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:38:50 GMT

There is an association with spaying and hyperadrenocorticism but I thought that was mainy in Jills spayed very young, American style. I've seen plenty of unspayed Jills suffering as a result of persistent oestrus so, like Hannah says, why not spay?

Cheers,

Niall

RE: Ferret owners avoid vets

Hannah Wynne Richards — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:41:03 GMT

Why not spay ? If you don't and she doesn't have a vasectomised boyfriend, then she will have bone-marrow suppression. I have quite a lot of ferrets on my books, and I always advise spaying jills-anaesthetic FAR less worrying than a rabbit. I don't routinally castrate hobs, but vasectomise if they are living with unneutered females

Wynne

RE: Ferret owners avoid vets

Martin Jones — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:18:03 GMT

I think there are two sides to this: whilst it could be argued that ferret owners are, in some cases, not addressing their pets' needs, the majority probably don't visit vets either because of lack of faith in expertise (and having attended CPD with John Chitty yesterday, I'm ashamed of my current level of knowledge), or because of lack of information on routine interventions and procedures.

We have very few ferrets on the books, and the only one we've had in this YEAR is the female rescue currently in the kennels, waiting for rehoming. I was supposed to be spaying her next week, but after listening to John, I think that won't be happening now.

Martin