My ferret keeps licking itself raw

Question
Hello Jacquie,

I have a 4 year old female ferret named Chica. Over a year ago she started licking her belly bald. The licking has progressed to her right side and almost across her back. She licks so furiously that she is creating raw wounds on her. I read previous answers to people concerning Adrenal Disease. I'm beginning to think that may be the cause. My vet told me after looking at her (when she started on her stomach) that it was allergy related. He gave her a steroid shot and tritop and said if it didn't go away it was an allergy and that I need to take her to a exotic vet. She exibits the lethargy talked about in the symptoms of Adrenal Disease and the hair loss but I have yet to read that the hair loss was related to licking but rather to just that, hair loss. Could this be Adrenal Disease or (I pray) something else?

Thank you for any information you can give me.

Answer
Hi Mary:

I'm so sorry to hear that Chica is so very uncomfortable! I can only imagine how miserable she must feel being that itchy and licking to the point that she has raw, open wounds. You are right, adrenal disease *can* cause itching that severe, but there are other things that can also cause itching that becomes that severe also, which is why your original vet said to get her to an exotic vet if the treatments she gave didn't fix the problem.

Chica could have one of many skin conditions that cause unbearable itching that can cause a ferret to lick until its skin is raw. Some of those could be allergies, but I'm thinking also possibly ringworm or other skin parasites (where a tiny parasite buries itself under the skin and causes it to itch terribly).

Treatment to completely resolve the itching *may* turn out to be a simple thing such as applying a cream for a period of time, or giving an oral medication, but only an exotics specialist (or animal dermatologist) can determine what it is and what will cure it.

Here are some lists of ferret (exotic) vets in the U.S. and Canada:

VETS CANADA:   
* http://www.ferretrescue.ca/start.php
* http://tinylink.com/?TlVyYKa6e0
* http://www.ferrets.org/Veterinarian_Listings.htm   (British Columbia)
* http://www.ferretcentral.org/for-others/db-vets.html
* http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/sask_ferrets/

VETS USA:
* http://www.quincyweb.net/quincy/vet.html
* http://ferrethealth.org/vets/
* http://www.ferret-universe.com/vets/vetlist.asp
* http://www.ferretsanctuary.com/vets.shtml
* http://www.ferretcentral.org/for-others/db-vets.html
* http://ferrethealth.org/vets/

Please, please - your ferret does not have words to beg you to help her out of this misery. Hopefully you can imagine how horrible it would feel to be that itchy and you'll call someone right away and get some help for her.  You MUST get to the CAUSE before you can find a cure.  However, in the DAYS (*please, no more than days, okay??) while you wait, you can give her .5cc (that's 1/2cc) of Children's Liquid Benadryl every 8 hours to try to give her a little relief. Also, you can purchase Benadryl Cream in a tube and rub it directly onto the itchy places on her tummy or wherever the redness has spread to. If you are going to use the cream, use 1/2 dose (that's .25cc or 1/4cc) of benadryl so that just in case she licks the cream she won't overdose. The benadryl should help keep her a bit more comfortable until you can get a diagnosis and some real treatment - Benadryl is NOT A CURE in itself - it is ONLY for temporary relief.

You may want to change her food. Not sure what you feed her now, but look at the ingredients. If the current ingredients look like this: chicken, chicken byproducts, rice...etc  then try to purchase a ferret food that the product label reads like this:  turkey, turkey byproducts, potatoes, etc. There are lots of ferret foods to choose from and their ingredients all vary; many because of ferret allergies to various ingredients. Since we don't know WHAT (or even IF) your little Chica *may* be allergic to, the best idea is to get the most *opposite* list of ingredients you can, but remember to keep protein to a minimum of 35%, fat 20%.  Here's a great list of foods and their ingredients that you can use to choose another food to start changing her over to. Make the change SLOWLY over about two weeks, each day giving more of the new food and less of the old:

 http://www.mdferretpaws.org/care/food_treats.html

Finally, I would give her a bath to try to remove any surface irritants before applying that first treatment of Benadryl cream. I bathe my kids with nice warm (about 102-degrees; remember ferrets normal body temperature is 101-103 degrees...if ferret shivers, make water warmer; if ferret pants, make the water cooler immediately - that's a sign of overheating and ferrets can't pant to cool themselves like dogs do. Panting in ferrets is life-threatening, so react quickly and change the water to just above lukewarm until the ferret has a chance to cool down, then continue the bath) water and use JOHNSONS & JOHNSONS BABY (NO TEARS) SHAMPOO for best results. Rinse well TWICE to be sure all shampoo is out. Dry well with towel. Then immediately put benadryl on the sore spots. If she rubs/licks it off, as soon as she settles down to sleep, RE-apply cream to the sore areas very gently, trying not to waken her.

Hopefully this will give her a little relief while you are waiting for her vet appointment. If what she has his adrenal disease, you would also be seeing a swollen vulva and she would be having fur loss in places other than where she could reach to scratch/lick. She would itch all over and could lose fur all over also. Her belly would likely become bloated and she would get a 'pot belly' look; and the rest of her body would have increasingly less muscle tone and thinning or full loss of fur.

Another thing you may want to put on her belly if you find that she licks the Benadryl cream too much - Vitamin E. Apply sparingly; it's very very effectivly in a very thin application. You can open a Vitamin E capsule and rub the contents on her tummy OR you can buy a bottle of Vitamin E at your pharmacy. That way if she licks it, it won't be something that will hurt her.  

Hope that helps. Please let me know what you find out at the vet?  Your little girl is in my thoughts and prayers.

Sincerely,

Jacquie Rodgers