Ferret has a virus and is having black tarry stools?

Question

Has anyone here gone through this with their pet ferret? What outcome did you have?

Ferret is already at the vet. :) Actually...she has been there for going on 6 days now. She has been blood tested, x-rayed, temperatured, and poked and prodded. Poor girl! :( The vet is sticking to her guns saying it is a viral infection of some sort. She basically will have to fight her way through it.

I was just wondering if anyone has ever experienced the same thing...and what the out-come was.

Thanks guys for all of the answers!

Answer 1

Mine had black tarry stools and after a while started grinding her teeth and would only eat when syringe fed. I guessed beginning bowel obstruction, vet#1 guessed bleeding ulcer and vet #2 guessed tumor on the spleen. Took her to surgery after three weeks of listening to different opinions found that she had a giant hair ball inside of her stomach causing her bowel to temporarily obstruct. Why that caused the blood to appear in her poop is yet undetermined, but she's all better now.
Please take your ferret to a vet who knows about ferrets(other vets, though great in their field, will only waste time and cost you more money). No matter what's causing your ferret to be ill, it's nothing that'll just go away on its own.
Good luck to you and your fuzzy. I hope all will come out alright.

Answer 2

Well, since your fuzzmate is already at the vet, the worst is over. a black tarry stool indicates there is blood in it. the reason it's not a red color is because when blood is exposed to air or anything other than blood vessels, it loses its oxygen and essentially rusts, becoming a brown/black color. your ferret is bleeding from the small intestine somewhere. This can be caused by a blockage that is pushing against and damaging the intestine wall. most of the time it cannot be felt by a vet. a blockage can be caused by a hairball as mentioned above, but these are only common during shedding season.seeing as how it isnt quite shedding season yet, that rules hairballs out. Does your ferret like to chew on anything? my smallest ferret likes chewing on my sweaters and socks when i'm not looking. Cloth can cause a blockage, but a rubber or plastic chewed item is a much more common find. check around your ferret's play space for anything that has a bite mark or chewed off piece. The pieces don't have to be very big to cause a blockage, believe me.

I've had two ferrets with tarry stools. one had a very small intestinal blockage in the upper third portion of small intestine, something he found from a small dog toy fragment my pooch left behind. He got some heavy laxative doses and it saved us a trip to the vet for surgery. My other baby had gotten green slime from an incoming ferret. the bacteria itself didnt cause ulcers, but stress combined with it irritated his stomach and he had internal bleeding. sadly, we didnt know this until the bleeding had persisted for a while and he had a massive bleed-out all at once. A blood transfusion was too little too late, and he passed just hours after the bleeding incident.

So, to my knowledge, bleeding is mostly caused by two things; a damaging intestinal blockage, and excess acid that produces a hole in the stomach, usually stress-related.

Answer 3

That doesn't sound good. Black tarry stools may be a sign of internal bleeding. Best get the vet to check him asap.

Answer 4

Could be an ulcer....is your ferret grinding its teeth also? Best thing to do is visit the vet.

Answer 5

take it to the vet, that sounds serious. my ferrets never had that.