Accustomed to cats and dogs, owners sometimes struggle to spot symptoms and diseases in ferrets. It is important to learn to recognize ferret pathologies from the first symptoms, in order to take them to the vet promptly before the pathology worsens quickly. As an exotic pet, the ferret had some success until a few years ago, although now, at least where I come from, we see decidedly less of them. But anyone who decides to take a ferret with them must know at least in general terms what pathologies can affect it. This is in order to notice any problems early on symptoms.
For this reason we will first see what the main ones are symptoms that indicate an ongoing disease in ferrets and then what are the main diseases that ferrets suffer from.
Below you will also find a brief study on a particular disease of ferrets, the Aleutian Islands disease of the ferret.
Symptoms of disease in the ferret
These are some of the main symptoms in ferrets that indicate an ongoing disease:
Main ferret diseases
And these are some of the main diseases of ferrets:
Aleutian Islands disease in the ferret
Causes
Aleutian Ferret Disease is one viral pathology not as frequent as others (certainly not as frequent as hyperestrogenism, insulinoma or hyperadrenocorticism), but which can happen to be seen.
ADV, this is its acronym in English, is caused by a Parvovirus (different from that which causes Parvovirus in dogs or Feline Viral Panleukopenia in cats, but related). This is a small, DNA virus and without envelope. (READ also: Ferrets: character and 10 things to know before adopting one (or more))
This virus can affect both ferrets and mink (in fact it seems that this disease originated on New Zealand mink farms). There transmission occurs due to:
Symptoms of Aleutian Islands Disease
The incubation period of Aleutian Islands Disease it varies a lot, it can even last six months (sometimes we talk about years). Furthermore, not all ferrets positive for the virus necessarily develop the disease, while there are also some asymptomatic carriers (i.e. they harbor the virus, transmit it to other ferrets, but do not develop the pathology).
Those ferrets who develop the actual disease, however, show it symptoms as:
Treatment and therapy of Aleutian Islands disease in ferrets
As you may have noticed, i symptoms of Aleutian Island disease of the ferret they are somewhat nonspecific. So it is not possible to do anything from the symptoms alone diagnosis. The confirmation, in fact, comes from blood tests, in particular from a serological test born for minks, but which also works for ferrets.
If the test proves that the ferret has the virus, but does not have any symptoms of illness, nothing will be done other than keeping it monitored to ensure that the symptoms do not appear later. If the ferret lives with other people, however, for safety it would always be a good idea to separate them.
But what if the ferret is positive and sick, therefore with symptoms? Unfortunately, as with all viral diseases, for this pathology. The treatment will be symptomaticwe will therefore try to alleviate the symptoms. However, it is good to know that once it manifests itself, the pathology is rapidly evolving and irreversible: the ferret will die within a short time.
And there isn’t even a vaccine against this disease which, let’s remember, .
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