Revolution as ear mite treatment

Question
Hi Jacquie,

I'm not sure if you remember me, but I wrote to you a few months ago. My little ferret Hunter is now 7 months old, and after noticing that he was scratching at his ears a lot - I brought him to the vet, and it turns out that he has ear mites. My vet prescribed Revolution. We started with one dose of it, in between his shoulder blades a few weeks ago. That didn't work, so now she gave me 3 doses and told me to give him one dose between the shoulder blades every 10 days.

Anyway, after the first new dose (the first one after the initial attempt a few weeks ago) he developed diarrhea. So, it's been about 2 days with on again, off again diarrhea. He's eating and drinking normally, playing normally, and just in case, I'm giving him an electrolyte replacer from Marshall mixed in with his water, and forcing him to drink every few hours! I've done the back of the neck scruff test, and his skin snaps back quickly, so I know he is not dehydrated.

I'm wondering if you have ever experienced this with Revolution (if you have used it before). Is it possible he picked up some parasite while at the vet? What other causes of diarrhea are there?

Finally, I just started mixing in Evo Innova with his Totally Ferret and Zupreem. I can't remember when I started doing this (and whether it was before or after the diarrhea started). So, I guess it really could be anything. As a control, I've taken back the Evo kibble I mixed in and waiting to see if anything changes.

Sorry for this convoluted message!
-Emilia

Answer
Hi Emilia & Hunter!

So glad to see you back and that things are going as well as they are. Sounds like you have the situation under control as far as keeping the diarrhea well in check and treating it, suspecting the correct things, etc.  Good mommying!!  I'm proud of you!  I haven't personally used Revolution on my ferrets. Mine did all come with ear mites - I think almost all pet store ferrets come with them at some level and if it's a low level, it takes a while for them to grow and really cause a problem. Sometimes they do catch them from other pets, either yours or others at a vet office or any place other cats or ferrets reside. Mites are really a problem with ferrets because they love the warmest places and ferrets have the highest body temperatures (same with fleas), so they can get them anywhere other pets are. My experience has been that once they get over their "baby" mites, they haven't gotten them again tho. So hopefully it will be a one time experience. My vet gave my kids an "in ear" treatment, then repeated it in two weeks one time; the other times gave injections and repeated it in two weeks. I believe she used "ivermectin" if I remember correctly, both in ear and injectable and it was very effective.


I haven't read the label on Revolution, but I definitely would NOT exceed the "kitten" dosage of Revolution - whatever that is - for your ferret. THAT could cause him to be sick, so read the label and go by that just in case it disagrees with what your vet said.  I do know that it IS safe to use Revolution on ferrets "as prescribed for kittens".

As far as his diarrhea - kudos to you for checking for dehydration and making sure he doesn't get dehydrated with his diarrhea. That can get a ferret sicker than just about anything else quicker than anything else (except an intestinal blockage), so you're doing GREAT!) I would more likely suspect the change in food than the mite treatment causing the diarrhea (assuming the mite treatment doesn't exceed the kitten dosage), so you might want to add in the new food just a little slower at the beginning until his system gets used to it. Evo is an excellent food and highly recommended. Also highly recommended that your ferret is used to eating 3 or even 4 different foods because if one changes their formula, suddenly you have a ferret who won't eat. This way, you always have several foods to fall back on, so keep rotating them, mixing them, or however you do it, but keep them all familiar to him and he will be healthier in the long run for it.

Please give my best and a big hug and kiss to Hunter for me. It's so good to hear from you. Be sure to clean those ears after the mite treatment; there will be coffee grounds looking "mite poop" in the ears that will need to be flushed out. You can flush with mineral oil (which also smothers mites BTW) on a daily basis for a week or so and let him shake his head to help loosen the probably impacted byproducts of the mites, then follow with Q=tips dipped in either mineral oil OR baby oil (saturated), then scoop straight DOWN just inside the ear, slowly twirling the Qtip in a scooping motion and you will bring up a lot of coffee grounds looking stuff. Repeat in each ear until the Qtip comes out clean. Probably give him a break between ears because they don't like the process very well, but they can hear better afterwards and they sure feel better. You can even do this after a few days of mineral oil "soakings" dripping it down into his ears until the ear canal is full (it smothers the mites). Just always remember that the Qtips are rough and abrasive an always need to be very very soaked with oil before going into the ear. You can't really hurt a ferret's inner ear as long as you don't dig hard in there. The inner ear is L shaped, so when you go straight down, you don't get to the inner workings, which are in the cross (bottom of the "L") area.  Ears should be cleaned about monthly with baby oil soaked Qtips to keep mites away and watch for coffee grounds, which means he needs to be treated again.

I once got to see an ear mite under microscope magnification and they look like a prehistoric strongly armoured really mean critter.  I can only imagine how horrible they feel crawling around inside those little ferret heads!  YIKES!  Hope Hunter is mite free SOON and happily playing again.

Hugs to that little boy and keep up the good work!

Sincerely,

Jacquie Rodgers