Diarrhea....(ferret)

Since the day I adopted him, Ruben has been having diarrhea. And I'm not talking just some loose poop, I'm talking liquidy gross light brown/yellow stuff. It has been varying in consistancy, but it has stayed mostly liquid with no form at all. (He isn't dehydrated, thankfully.)

He's been drinking, eating, urinating, and defecating (albiet it is diarrhea...) like normal. He's also been playing normally, and sleeping normally. He has a bit of a cough off and on, but nothing I thought was serious.

Rinnie and Dameon are absolutely fine and are having normal defecations.

I don't think he was having diarrhea when I saw him last Wednesday, so I'm fairly certain it is just stress/diet. But again, the stress/diet hasn't seemed to effect Rinnie at all so I'm a bit worried. I was also hoping it would have cleared up by now, so again, I'm worried.

At what point should he see a vet? Is there anything I can do to his diet that might help clear it up? They've been eating my food (TOTW and some Wilderness mixed in) without any hesitation, so I wasn't mixing in what food of theirs the lady gave me. I'm going to have one bowl of that food and one bowl of the diet I feed and see if that helps out any.

And because pictures would be helpful, I took a picture of his poo from the puppy pad I just took out of the cage:


The poop of his in the litterbox seems more formed than this...it is like a light brown glob. So I'm thinking only in the past two days has it gotten this bad, although he's been having diarrhea since I the day I got him. The only thing I can think of that might make sense beyond just stress/diet is ECE. But then wouldn't the other ferrets have it? He saw a vet in March and was healthy and has been at the rescue since, with sick ferrets quarentined in a different room.

EDIT: Also wanted to add that he hasn't been vomiting.

Can't really answer your questions about how long to wait to take him to the vet or anything, but he might just have a more sensitive stomach than Rinnie if he's the only one having an issue changing foods. I've had dogs that could easily switch foods with little to no "slow introduction" and I've had dogs that even with a slow change, would have diarrhea for like a week.

The first thing to consider is the food and water Ruben's consuming. Ruben may be more sensitive than Rinnie and Dameon and that's why it doesn't effect them.

There are a lot of nasty stuff in small doses in our tap water and food such as Arsenic, Pesticides, Chlorine, Lead, Antibiotics, Flouride, etc.

To be safe, take Ruben to the vet and inquire about special foods.

Also, feed Ruben uncontaminated drinking water. Bottled water for you and bottled water for your pets!

I learned a lot from this place.

Let us know how Ruben's doing.

ECE is also known as "green slime disease", so I doubt it is ECE (the poop would be noticeably green, and the others would have it too). ECE also has a bird seed consistency.

How old is he again? Is he grinding his teeth? Pawing at his face?
I doubt it is from the food change, as that is really runny diarrhea for that. Usually it would be more formed then that, but not fully formed. I would add some pumpkin for a bit, could help with the diarrhea. Some ideas of what it could be are:
- an ulcer, which could be caused from the stress of moving
- Inflammatory Bowel Disease

I would vet. Especially if it has been going on for more than a few days. It cannot be comfortable for the poor guy.

ETA: I just realized this thread is from a few days ago... is he still having the diarrhea?

He's roughly 4 years old. He was found as a stray in the spring, so no one knows for sure.

He's eating and drinking normally. No pawing, no grinding, no otherwise abnormal behavior. He's still playing and acting normal. He snores when he sleeps, but then, so does Dameon. LOL He hasn't lost any weight and eats his bedtime treat with gusto.

I haven't seen that consistancy of poop in a few days, but it is still loose. It ranges from a light brown formed poop to a cow patty, although I did just notice he had another squirt of the liquid poop. He had a brown formed poop this morning (normal looking), then a brown cow patty this evening, followed by a brown squirt. The squirt he had tonight is the first I've seen in three days or so - they have mostly been cow patties (kinda formed, but not). I have also been offering his normal mixture of food, although I'm not sure how much of it he is eating versus the mixture I feed (I have them in two seperate bowls).

We actually do have some canned pumpkin sitting around (Dad was going to make something with it, but never got around to it), so I could try giving him some of that to see if it helps.

When Apollo was a wee little baby (around three weeks) he got what I assume was a bacterial infection. He almost didn't make it, but we were able to get him sorted out in enough time. A cat breeder that majorly helped me out reccomended giving him some Bene-bac. (Beneficial bacteria to aid in digestive regulation.) Think that might help out Ruben?

I quickly googled it, and I did see where some people have been told by their vets that bene-bac is fine to give for ferrets. Apparently you would have a
"half click" which equals about 1/2 gram, if you know what that means (I think it comes in a tube or something? from what I can read). Either way, I would just give a little amount.

Since he is roughly 4 years old, completely random, but have you thought about giving him Melatonin? Giving it every few days is thought to be a good preventative for Adrenal Disease, which they usually start to show symptoms for around 4/5 years old. I give all of my guys some as supplements, as it is really cheap, and will not hurt them. Just something to think about As for the dose of Melatonin, I use a 5mg pill split into 1/6ths, and they all get 1/6th of it. If you used 3mg you could easily just split it into 3 and just use a pill between the 3 of them each time