taking teeth grinding seriously

Teeth grinding means one thing — something more serious is wrong with your ferret that if left untreated can be life threatening. The problem is stomach pain, but the cause for that pain could be one of several things including stomach ulcers or an intestinal blockage.

Ferrets can develop stomach ulcers due to stress. This can progress to dark tarry stools which contain blood. (If this occurs, regardless of good heath or not, you should take action.) With ulcers, the loss of blood may cause anemia — also life threatening.

Ferrets can easily have an intestinal blockage from a foreign object or hairball. Rule number one to avoid an intestinal blockage — ferret proof your home. To a ferret, the buttons on the remote control and telephone are all to tempting a treat. Styrofoam packaging crumbles and can be hazardous. Also, never feed them nuts, and give them only small bits of raw fruits and vegetables. Rule number two — brush your ferret often and offer him small amounts of a laxative such as Marshall’s FerretLax on a regular basis as a preventative measure. An intestinal blockage can often mean surgery — so take that extra effort to prevent such a scenario.

With stomach pain, the sick ferret may reduce food intake or stop eating all together. Not eating predisposes him to additional problems.

None of these problems will fix themselves on their own and will only get worse. Visit your Vet immediately for an evaluation to determine the cause of the grinding (and stomach pain). They can recommend an appropriate course of action.

A note on packing peanuts: They say that the newer, starch packing peanuts probably won't cause a blockage. They are even marketed as safe for ferrets. I still avoid them in our home. Even if they do not cause blockage, they are inappropriate for them to ingest.

Despite all Buddy’s many health problems, he has been feeling much better. So I was somewhat surprised that he started grinding his teeth. The sound was like nails on a chalk board. He only did it while eating. After a phone call to Dr. Wagner, who is farmiliar with Buddy’s health history, he was able to diagnose the problem as stomach ulcers. Because of the ulcers, eating caused him pain as his stomach muscles stretched. He is already on an antibiotic, so the plan was to treat him symptematicly. He was prescribed Sucralfate — 2ml orally twice a day ideally 15 minutes before he eats. (Since he eats when he wants throughout the day... this is a guess for me.) The purpose of the Sucralfate is to coat the stomach. He was also prescribed 1.5ml orally of a narcotic (a mix of 3 Torbugesic tablets in a Butorphanol syrup) to be administer twice a day (or as needed) for pain.