Vets in North of NB ?

[Johnny and Demon]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if any of you know any ferret or at least ferret friendly vets in the north of New-Brunswick ?
Its for a friend of mine who is living in the Acadian Peninsula.
I told her to see Dr. Miro Drmac at VetCare Hospital in Riverviews, who is awesome with ferrets ! But I totally understand that she is looking for something "closer". She told me about a vet in Richibucto ?

Her name is Dr. Leigh Ann Egan and the name of the clinic is Kent County Veterinary Hospital. The adress is 118 Acadia Street, Richibucto NB. The phone number is [phone].

If anyone of you know any ferret friendly vets, please let me know ! *** Most people in the north are also french, very french lol and its hard for them to provide the best for their ferrets.

Thanks

[Tressie]

Hi Annik,

I don't know if Miramichi is close to where your friend is but our two most recent fosters came from Miramichi and were looked after by Dr. France Vienneau at Pet Love Care in Miramichi - [phone].

Tressie

[Johnny and Demon]

She told me about a vet in Miramichi, maybe its her ?
I just want to know as many ferret friendly vets as I can in the North of NB so people I know with ferrets know where to go. I would love to help people from the north of the province to get more infos about ferrets, especialy if they are thinking about gettin one or 2 ! Some of my friends were a bit upset that Bathurst and the acadian peninsula have ferrets for sale in their pet stores but there's not much ferret friendly vets around. & there's nothing really to feed your ferret with !

[airy]

Apr 28, 2010 18:49:53 GMT -4 Johnny and Demon said:

She told me about a vet in Miramichi, maybe its her ?
I just want to know as many ferret friendly vets as I can in the North of NB so people I know with ferrets know where to go. I would love to help people from the north of the province to get more infos about ferrets, especialy if they are thinking about gettin one or 2 ! Some of my friends were a bit upset that Bathurst and the acadian peninsula have ferrets for sale in their pet stores but there's not much ferret friendly vets around. & there's nothing really to feed your ferret with !

This is much like Grandfalls. Not one single ferret friendly vet, yet the pet store there does sell ferrets but yet all they have for ferret food is Marshall's. To me that is nearly the same as feeding your cat No Name cat food. I have no idea why they wouldn't consider selling any other type of brand for ferret feed. There is a guy in Grandfalls who often walks around town with his ferrets, I have yet to see him with his ferrets but everyone keeps telling me about him, I wonder where he takes his ferrets for their vet care?? I think it is a bit irresponsible for Pet stores to sell ferrets when they know there is no ferret friendly vets anywhere near the area they are located in. There is one ferrets friendly vet in a town near here..well so-so, she does not do vaccinations and is not completely as ferret savy as I would like her to be. I am sticking with my old vet who is like a 4 hour drive away and will only be using her for a emergency, luckily there has been no emergency's yet. I think it is very unfair for people like your friends to not be able to provide proper care for their ferrets because it is unavailable in their areas. There seems to be no shortage of ferrets so why does their have to be such a shortage of ferret friendly vets?

[Tressie]

Why indeed?

They are a complicated critter and unfortunately, although we do have a lot of ferrets we do not have them by the millions like the U.S. does. So vets are reluctant to spend the time and money necessary to be trained on them.

However, I must say there are many more vets who will see ferrets around here now than there were a few years ago.

Its up to us as ferret owners to find a good vet who is willing to learn and then we should provide our vets with information and/or resources they can use to get further information.

As long as you can find a vet who is willing to learn and doesn't have a god complex you've struck gold.

For starters everyone can print the 23 pages from Tuffs University on the basics of ferret medicine and give them to their vets and keep a copy for yourself:

ocw.tufts.edu/Content/60/Lecturenotes/807949

Vets have busy clinical practices and don't always have time to search for information.

Another way to help your vet learn about ferrets is to ask them do a necropsy when your baby dies. You can still get the ashes, plus it is the only way to know for certain what illness he/she had.

Many people don't bring their ferrets to a vet for an annual check-up or blood work, etc. We can't expect a vet to know a species they rarely see as patients.

Last weekend I received an email from a woman who was surrendering her ferret because she couldn't afford veterinary care. She had taken him to THREE different vets and each had given her medicine for worms because he had a bloated abdomen. No stool samples were ever looked at. He kept getting sicker and losing weight. The last vet told her to give him Nutrical to eat. That is all she fed him.

When she described his condition I told her it was an emergency and that she needed to take him to Dr. Drmac immediately. She hadn't even heard of Dr. Drmac and his clinic was only a few minutes from her home!

Well it was too late for this baby, Dr. Drmac told me he had no choice but to euthanize the poor thing, there was no hope for him.

So here we have a case of three separate veterinarians willing to see a ferret but none of them had even the basic knowledge that ferrets don't get worms and that a bloated belly isn't a sign of worms in a ferret!

The point of this tragic story is that if you have found a vet who is willing to see a ferret - don't assume that means they know everything there is to know. And don't beat them up if they don't.

Arm yourself with information before you go there. Continue learning as much as you can about the diseases these little guys are prone to and know what the warning signs are for the basic things they are likely to get. Post here to get some ideas and input. So that when you get to the vet you can be prepared to ask whether it could be this - or could it be that?

Tressie