A ferrety update

[JudyN]

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Oh how wonderful - thank you for posting that

 

[Flobo]

A bit more Goose

 

[Flobo]

I've just got my last lot of 35mm film photos back. Here's one of Goose and one of Candy, she's about 15 years old now!

 

[JudyN]

I'm sure you've said before, but what species of snake is Candy? And how big is she now?

 

[Flobo]

She's a corn snake and the last skin she shed whole was just about 6ft, so she's a little shorter than that. I was thinking back to when I adopted her the other day(2011) and she seemed so small, probably about 2ft! They reckoned she was about a year/ year and a half maybe then.

 

[JudyN]

I'm guessing you've never let her play with your ferrets...

 

[Flobo]

Goose has just had a pee test and a check up at the vets and all is still looking nice and stable, phew! He's gained weight, healthy coat and active so the vet is really happy with him, hooray! Just going to continue as we are and monitor him as per. He'll be 6 years old next month, the vet even said he was the best conditioned and oldest ferret on their books at the mo, very proud

 

[Flobo]

Today is Goose's 6th birthday! We got him a new strawberry . He liked it for a moment but of course his old 'strawberry'(aka the horrid bit of vaguely yellow foam!) is still his favourite!!

 

[JudyN]

Happy birthday Goose!

 

[Flobo]

While I'm on 'other animals' I thought I'd do a quick update on Goose. A little while ago because he was showing signs of discomfort we put him back on buprenorphine, lowest dose, that seemed to work well for him for a fair bit. Then maybe 3 weeks ago, he went from noodling around in the garden happily on a Thursday eve to dragging his back legs unable to walk over the weekend...There was no exotic vet in for an emergency so spoke with the nurse and just upped his meds to make him more comfortable until I could see the vet on Monday. We added gabapentin to the mix and continued with a higher dose of buprenorphine and over the next few days he regained his mobility and was back noodling around, albeit slowly... The vet had checked his temp, blood sugar(if this is low it can effect mobility) and urine and all were pretty fine so it did suggest to be pain related from the cysts in his kidneys. We repeated his urine test a week later, to check function, and there's been no massive change, weirdly!

So we went from thinking we were going to lose him this time(again!), to him being ok thankfully, I say ok but it is of course relative to what he has going on... but for now we're managing his pain, he's happy noodling around, having a little play here and there, eating, keeping his fluids up and having lots of cuddles and mountains of kisses!

I do have one bug bear though, the exotics team are the only one's in this area and only at this particular vets practice, last year when Iggy was under their care a consultation was about £45, since Goose has been seeing them, so from end of last year, a consultation had gone up to £66... I went to pick his meds up a couple of days ago and it's gone up again to £85!!! I did ring round a load of vets when I got home to see if any had exotics on their teams but no luck... it's a bit rough eh but seems I have no choice!!

 

[RGC]

My heart goes out to you, Flobo. I'm sure the individual vets are dedicated but, yielding to my my cynicism in my older age, I question the priorities of the paymasters (corporate). It's a shame that you have no exotic surgeons within easy reach. Hope things improve for Goose.

 

[Hemlock]

Hugs for you and goodvibes for both you and Goose.

 

[arealhuman]

Hi Flobo, glad to hear that Goose is doing so well despite what's going on with him. Long my it continue. The review into vet pricing can't come soon enough - it does seem that the culture has shifted from friendly family practices to large corporates price gouging customers.

 

[Flobo]

What makes me most sad is that, even though I'm not intending to adopt more rescue ferrets for a long while, the consultation pricing will definitely effect any decisions to do so in the future...

 

[JoanneF]

Sorry, it may have come up before, but do you have other vets in the area to give you some choice?

For example, we have one that's all singing and dancing with fancy equipment and state of the art surgical facilities, and boy do we pay for it. But, if my dog needed surgery I'd have confidence in their services. We also have one that operates out of a portacabin and looks like he could do with buying a new washing machine. But he charges very reasonable prices (he even didn't charge me anything once, when I went in worried about what was just a wart). So if it's a broken nail or a simple procedure, that's where I'd go.

Some of the agricultural vets seem to be a bit more realistic up here, is that something to explore?

 

[Flobo]

When I got back from the vets last week, after seeing the price increase, I rang round the vets in our area and no one has an exotics on their teams... they all refer everyone to my vets... there was just one that said they had a vet who had an interest in ferrets but not an expert, so it sounded like anything other than basic maintenance they couldn't guarantee.
I don't think we have agricultural vets in the local area but it might be worth a google and see if any are close-ish. Never thought of that, when I lived in Ireland I always used them(though that was many years ago now!)

 

[Flobo]

I've just got my latest batch of 35mm film photos back. So here's a few of the boy

 

[JudyN]

Just gorgeous