June 99

06.06.99

I did my first show! I'd been invited to do a ferret display at a little show. I went to Karen's the day before because the show was close to where she lives. The show really went well, it was supposed to be on from 1.00-6.00 p.m. but really only started at 2.00 and finished about 5.00. But it went well, we had 3 cages with ferrets and our marquee was so small that we couldn't have fit any more cages in anyway. We also had a table with ferret information and NFWS leaflets and I printed out a "Stroke a ferret for 10p" sign. There were a lot of handicapped young people but especially the mentally handicapped ones enjoyed stroking the ferrets. Karen's James was the perfect PR ferret, he held so still and enjoyed all the attention. We also had Jack, Reno, Tom and Mason out. I'm glad Karen came with me, it would've been too much for one person. We had done 2 collection tins the night before. 2 cat food tins, we put lids on the open top and a slit in the bottom and I printed out West Wales Ferret Welfare on paper and Karen wrapped it around the tins and covered them in paper so they didn't look like tins and we made quite a bit of money, almost 20.00 Pounds. The lady who organised the event put 10.00 Pounds in and the other 10.00 Pounds were from stroking ferrets and other donations. Plus I got money to cover the diesel. I will have to see that I do some local shows, it is good for ferret PR and getting funding. Like I could buy an ink cartridge now, I print out and send so many information leaflets and don't get anything for it so now I got money to cover the costs for that.

10.06.99

Some people phoned me in the morning and said a friend had found 2 ferrets in a forest in a neighbouring village and they didn't know anything about ferrets or what to do with them so I said I take in unwanted or stray ferrets. The people who phoned came a few hours later and brought the ferrets in a bucket... A young albino jill, probably from last year, and her sandy hob kit, approx. 6 weeks old. They were both very thin, the jill weighed 600g, the kit 300g, you could see the spine sticking up on the kit... :-( I started feeding both a mush made of ground ferret food, Hill's A/D and water. The jill wasn't feeding her baby at all anymore but luckily the kit liked the mush and did well on it. When I got them, the kit was very unsteady on his feet but a week later he was strong, could run and jump well and was running up and down the stairs, well, not running up but more like climbing up the stairs. And he filled out nicely, his mum, too! :-) He also started playing with me, I roll him over on his back and tickle his tummy and then he tries to kill my finger... ;-) Mum was very restless the first few days and looked like she was either looking for her other babies if there were any others or was looking for food but she calmed down after a few days and started to war dance and play. She doesn't bite, only feet for some reason. She does bite occasionally, it's like she gets a bout of paranoia and bites my hands out of the blue but only a quick nip and she hasn't drawn blood at all.

Because jill and kit are so well behaved, I have started to doubt the people's story. If they had been in the wild for a while, you wouldn't have been able to handle either of them. So either somebody didn't want them anymore and asked the people to bring them round or somebody had thrown them out and they had only been out a few days at the most. And the people came round a week after bringing the jill and kit to me and the jill and kit were out when they came so I put the kit back in the cage and held the jill so they could stroke her and the jill hissed at them! I'd never heard her hiss... And she was so upset! After the people had gone, she sat by the mesh of the cage and looked at me and when I took her out she just quietly laid in my arms, usually she's squirmy like a worm and wants to be everywhere at the same time. But she really gave the impression like she was depressed. The people seem nice but they must have upset the jill or maybe they even were her previous owners and she was obviously upset because she thought they'd come back for her...

27.06.99

Yesterday I had the jill spayed, she looked in very good condition and I decided I want to neuter all rescues before re-homing them. We have a new young vet at our surgery and I asked for her to spay her. The jill looked fantastic after her spay, the cut was very small and the stitches looked very neat, I was happy how it all went. I'd just done one mistake, I'd asked for her to have a pain killer because when I had Jilly and Angel spayed, they looked like they were in agony for about 4 days.

The jill was fine after her op, no sign of pain, but I didn't want her to run around that night and she didn't understand why I didn't let her out of the cage. By the morning she was getting very restless, pushing her cat litter tray up and scratching at her mesh door non-stop. I had a look at her and saw a big swelling under her stitches, I thought a blood pocket had formed, I'd had this problem with Baby and Dana when they were spayed. So I let her out of the cage because I was afraid she would make it worse by scratching at the door, and went to phone the vets about the swelling. They told me to bring her in so I went back to get the jill but she was hiding under my wardrobe. I saw quite a lot of blood on the carpet and something that looked like vomit so I thought the blood pocket had burst. The jill was curled up under the wardrobe and wasn't moving so I started to panic. I called my neighbours and a neighbour came over and tipped the wardrobe to the front so I could pick the jill up from underneath. I had a quick look underneath and started feeling pretty ill when I saw that her intestines were coming out of the incision... I had the pet carrier ready so I laid her in that and rushed her to the vets. Once there I handed her over to Brenda the anaesthetist and said her intestines were coming out so she took the jill straight into the operating room. While I sat down on the floor because everything went blur...

Brenda came back when everything was over, she said her outside stitches had still been intact but the muscle that had been stitched inside had torn... Catherine the vet had rinsed her abdominal cavity because there was hair and dust on the intestines but luckily all the intestines were intact. I think it was quite a job sowing the muscle back up but Catherine did a good job of it and stitched the outside very well.

When I picked the jill up in the afternoon I talked to Brenda and said maybe it's best not to use painkiller. She then said that Catherine had said the same thing, she'd said that all the bitches that pulled their stitches out were the ones that had been given painkillers.

Well, I never thought it would happen to me. I'd heard of friends who had jills who pulled their stitches out and one friend had to stuff all the intestines back into the tummy before taking one jill back to the vets. But I thought these things only happen to others... And I'd never heard of the inside stitching coming undone or the muscle ripping... I'd always dreaded something happening though because I'm unbelievably squeamish. I thought if something like this ever happened, I'd faint or be sick but when it does happen, you concentrate on the animal and do everything you can for it and not concentrate on yourself feeling ill.

The jill got through all this okay, she looked reasonable bright Saturday evening after her op and better on the Sunday, and Monday she looked like nothing ever happened. Amazing how quickly these little critters recover...

I had to inject the jill with Baytril for 4 days from Sunday to Wednesday. Brenda had wanted to give me Baytril in liquid or tablet form but Mason looked so distressed when I had to give him Baytril a few weeks ago that I didn't want to put the jill through it so I asked for syringes, needles and a bottle of Baytril. I wasn't at all sure about the injecting but Mr Jones had taught me how to inject a year ago so I was okay. I put the jill in front of a bowl of cat milk and while she was drinking that, I slowly injected her. She was so good, it took me ages to inject because I was sooo careful but she didn't move or make it difficult for me in any way.

On the Thursday I had to take the jill to the vets again for a check-up, I saw Catherine again. She now told me exactly what had happened. The inside stitching had come undone because the layer wasn't thick enough or not knotted properly plus the jill had been too active. 2 outside stitches had also come out so that's why the intestines came out...