Newly adopted Skinny ferret

Question
We just adopted this ferret yesterday and know very little about her except...she is the skinniest ferret I've ever seen, unsure of her age or any illnesses, when we picked her up the food they gave us was "rabbit" pellets. I couldn't believe that, we have four other ferrets that we have adopted and all are healthy. But this new one is so skinny you can feel & see the bones in her tail even, and when we gave her some good ferret food she stayed by the food and aet & ate and drank water. Her poop looks normal compared to our other ferrets. She lives right now in a large rabbit cage, with a afgan blanket in it, we provided her a hammack to lae in. My question to you is: could the rabbit food alone of made her this skinny or do you suspect a more serious diesese? And shoud I keep her away from my other ferrets?

Answer
Hi Diette,

Congratulations on the addition to your family! I'm so glad you adopted a new ferret.

This new little girl could have some sort of illness. With the rabbit pellets this poor little girl was getting, she probably wasn't getting the proper nutrition. Or, she could have refused to eat it, which would cause the weight loss. There could be any number of reasons besides malnutrition for weight loss in a ferret and since you have no history on your newest little girl I would suggest keeping her away from your other ferrets until she has a clean bill of health. I also suggest getting her into the vet as soon as you can to eliminate any underlying causes for her weight loss outside of malnutrition. Like I said, I would keep her away from the other ferrets until after she sees a vet. This will help keep your other kids safe in case (Heaven forbid) your little girl is sick. Weight loss is a sign of so many illnesses that it will be difficult to tell without a vet's professional opinion.

You may start noticing a change in this little girl's stool since you are now feeding her ferret food as opposed to rabbit pellets. Diet change can cause diarrhea and runny stool for a period of 7-10 days. If it goes any longer than that (I would say any longer than 3-4 days), then that is another reason she should have a vet check up. Now, if she does start to have runny stool or diarrhea you need to make sure she stays hydrated. It is so important that a ferret with diarrhea stays hydrated, which is why I would suggest taking her in for a check up sooner rather than later if this happens.

I hope this helps! Please let me know how it turns out and how your new little girl progresses!

Sincerely,
Emilee Andrews