A ferret a day keeps the blues away…
So, I had planned on doing a nice big post with lots of videos and some pictures for the introduction. Unfortunately, I’ve been really sick and haven’t gotten nearly as far along on that process as I would have liked. So the couple videos and pictures I have will have to do.
Meet Snickers and her many aliases.
Here’s a couple videos I’ve managed to get, at the vet and while introducing her to Polgara.
I’ve not posted at all this year…part of that has been forgetfulness, and part of it has been Millie being increasingly sick. Her weight crashed early this year, from her norm of 700g down to a mere 430g at the lowest. We went to the vet, and she got put on metronidazole. This helped for a time, bringing her stable weight back to 650g for a while.
Unfortunately, it didn’t last. Her weight crashed again, and we added prednisolone to the mix. She stabilized again for a time, only at 550g, but seemed happy. At least, happy when I wasn’t making her take the icky meds. So most of the day!
Earlier this week, a mere couple days in advance of her next vet visit for annual checkup and vaccines, her weight crashed again. And this morning, I woke up to give her the meds for the day, and she was all but gone. We rushed to the vet, with her wrapped in warm blankets to try and boost her body temperature, but there was nothing to be done but let her go. I’m really going to miss my little koalaferret.
Despite not posting pictures, I’ve still been taking them. And if she’s not been at her most photogenic this year, I still want to give her a fitting goodbye. So here’s Millie, everyone.
She loved her belly scratches.
She always wanted to go out and explore.
When we did go out, she sometimes got to stay at a fancy ferret hotel at my cousins’ place!
She loved, loved, loved her eggs. Both the ones our wonderful vet gave her so many years ago, and the ones my mom made for her more recently.
Playing with Gara in the Christmas present I got them.
Being woken up because dad wanted snuggles!
Lurking in her lair. A fuzzy alligator.
She sometimes ‘spilled’ when napping in there.
She still snuggled with me, even when I made her take icky meds.
And while it’s a bit blurry, she gave me kisses. She didn’t hold a grudge.
It’s blurry…but its the most recent picture I have that shows just what a sweetheart she was. She’d just rest her chin on me and that’s all it took.
Goodbye sweetie. Gara and I will miss you so much…
Millie and Polgara like to fly. Testing out a new tripod to get some stable video.
DISCLAIMER: Don’t throw your ferrets! This is a gentle toss onto a very fluffy pillow, done very carefully and with lots of practice with extra padding around.. Ferrets might act indestructible, but they can be quite fragile. Also, some of them actually don’t like flying.
A weekend video treat for you all! This is why I’m sometimes just a couple minutes late in the morning…
More sad news…Draco passed away today.
We had taken him to the vet this week after noticing his weight was rapidly decreasing. The physical found pretty much nothing wrong with him at all, except the weight loss and some poor quality stool. The tentative diagnosis was IBD…with the usual caveat of potential lymphoma. Both are very common with ferrets, and both are difficult to diagnose accurately without surgical biopsies.
We opted to treat for IBD with metronidazole and vitamin B shots. He was on the meds for several days, and received them this morning. But tonight when I went to rouse the furkids for playtime, he was curled up comfortably in bed, and had passed away. The situation is pretty much identical to that we experienced with Ysabell, so it seems he likely had lymphoma after all, and something catastrophic happened, such as a rupture.
Good-bye Toe-cruncher…you will be missed.
Why do we put in all the extra beds?
Our apologies everyone… We’ve had this little darling for almost 2 months. We had some initial delays getting her integrated with the others…the timing of getting her to the vet to have her bloodwork done caused a couple weeks of delay; and right afterward, Minion had his little ‘adventure’ and surgery and recovery period. Seemed everything kept conspiring against me. But now, I diligently and at last have found the time to convert the video (I somehow filmed it upside down the entire time) and get it uploaded! No more excuses, just a nice 1am video treat for your weekend.
So, without further ado, we’d like to introduce the newest member of the ferret business, Millie!
Here’s a couple of videos to celebrate it being Tuesday, and my not being at work until after 10pm like on Monday!
Minion, in an orange crinkle toy which sadly has since had to be discarded after being wrecked from too much play:
And this is Zoe on one of her fishing trips: