r/ferrets

Looking for some help in dealing with insulinoma and a ferret that refuses to eat.

My love Mocha was diagnosed with Insulinoma in February at 5 years old. She had been acting sluggish for a month prior, but I had thought that was because she was getting less attention due to my other ferret Dobby needing a lot of attention for her health. I lost Dobby last month due to what was believed to be a spinal tumor, and I am still grieving while now extremely anxious about Mocha's health. While I've had ferrets for 5 years, I don't have much experience when it comes to illness. Mocha is my first ferret. I got Mocha when she was 3 months old. I then adopted Dobby in Feb 2025 and lost her a little over a year later.

Like in the attached video from 2 years ago, Mocha has always been my little trouble maker, full of energy and craziness. When I initially brought Mocha in to get diagnosed, her BG was in the 30s but the only symptom I noticed was that she was more tired than usual. She was put on .05 mg prednisone (5mg/ml). Over the span of a month, I didn't notice much improvement and she started eating a lot less. I took her back to the vet, BG was still in the 30s and she was bumped to .08 mg pred and .02 mg diazoxide was added (50 mg/ml). What scared me and keeps echoing in my head is that the vet said there is not much else we can do for her insulinoma if she isn't eating.

Now, I have been out of the country for the last 1.5 weeks and Mocha has been staying with my parents who have been giving her the medication as instructed, as well as hand feeding her kibble and supplementing with critical carnivore care. I came back yesterday and was shocked at how wobbly and dazed she was. I was able to get her to eat a good amount of kibble and critical carnivore care and she looked much more stable last night. This morning has completely thrown me off. At 8 am, I gave her some critical carnivore care but she refused additional kibble. I administered her morning meds and let her rest before trying to get her to eat more an hour later. For the last 4 hours, I've been trying to get her to eat kibble (variety of Instinct Ultimate Protein, Wysong, and Marshall's) from my hands, watered down kibble, critical carnivore care, with all refused. She never refuses her favorite treat but did today. She already has a vet appointment set for next week but I'm freaking out. Why is she refusing to eat anything? Do I need to syringe feed her critical carnivore care? Does anyone have any advice on what I can do? Additionally, I'm very worried about what the vet said regarding the medication not being able to do much if she refuses to eat. She is on the smaller side, weighing about 640 grams. Is there room to increase her dose at her size? What might be the average doses for a ferret her size?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm desperate to make her feel better, it's been an incredibly heartbreaking year so far with Mocha and Dobby's conditions.

The prettiest, sweetest little girl turned 2 today!

After my Max passed at the beginning of the month I felt I needed to get her sister Lola a friend so I got her two😁😁

Meet her new brothers, Taz(darker) and Guss(lighter) sleeping in their quarantine cage😊

yes i know these are horrible pictures she wasn’t cooperating but what is this?? it’s hard brownish reddish it doesn’t smell at all and it’s only in her one ear? i haven’t seen her scratching at her ear though and none of my other ferrets have it ?

My ferret always wraps his legs tightly when I hold him and it's the cutest thing, I was wondering if they all do that??

Please be warned the 4th photo contains a photo of a post-surgical amputation. It is the only reason I tagged this post NSFW to be on the safe side. The photo isn't graphic but may be uncomfortable to some. All other photos have no surgery images.

He had his back left hind leg amputated roughly three weeks ago due to recurring aggressive cancer which he already had two previous surgerys to remove, but the stress of the amputation on his little body was too much. He was 7 years old, his brother is currently 8. He lost a lot of his coloring with age, so in the younger photos he has much more prominent black markings.

Over the past two weeks he crashed twice due to blood loss from gastric ulcers we fought tooth and nail to heal. After sleepless nights on the floor holding him and syringe feeding him, keeping him warm, constant vet visits, who knows how many medications, and multiple blood transfusions, he finally said goodbye this monday evening. I am heartbroken but I know my poor boy was in unimaginable pain, and I am grateful he is in a better place.

I like to stick my phone camera juuuust outside of their cage's hammock and see who's in there. My sweet girls Yuna (left) and Videl (right) cuddling together.

Hhahaha after posting the create your ferret mini creator/game a very nice person showed me photos of their ferrets, one of them was hilarious!! the three ferrets waking up at the same time, they told me it was their cerberus.
Had to draw it ( ◡‿◡ *)

I rescued my ferret when he was 1 years old back in 2023 and he’s genuinely the sweetest thing ever. Very rarely he would go into a deep sleep but stopped in total maybe a year ago and I’ve only now realized that every time he sleeps with me, he falls into a deep sleep. I assumed he’s just bonded to me and feels very safe with me to do that. But it’s kind of hard to tell because he’s just such an affectionate ferret to everyone. Am I his favorite person if I’m the only one he does that with?

I hope this isn’t a dumb question (also he does have a friend but the other noodle is my sisters)

I also added pictures of him because he is so cute. His name is Egg 🥚