I wasn’t planning to do this blog but it’s came up a bunch recently. Eye issues for us are a get your backside to the vet NOW thing, However I appreciate that at present waiting for a vet appointment your pet could be suffering for a while. So, this is to tide you over until you get to the vet, not a replacement. For legal reasons I will also be telling you how I would handle such a problem to alleviate the pet’s discomfort until the vet visit. Does it sometimes “fix” the issue, sure, but it’s not technically a treatment, more first aid. On that note I would also like to recommend everyone look to taking a small animal and/or canine first aid course. They’re both more or less the same the ferrets just being smaller, and canine first aid more accessible in general. All that said and done lets get started! I come down and find, lets say Charlie because he never gets talked about much, has a watery eye. First thing I’m going to do is make up a saline solution (recipe in the kit guide) or if I’m really worried (and lets be honest I probably am), and have some cool boiled water on hand I might use that until the saline’s ready. Other things on hand here are sterile colloidal silver solution, I don’t like using this but it’s safe and if saline hurts sometimes I find it a better approach. Not something the average Joe keeps on hand though. My first choice is always going to be saline however since that is the most similar to tears and least irritating to the eye (theoretically) I would soak clean cotton pads in the saline and use one to clean around the eye from the tear duct out, discarding the used part of the pad after each swipe. My next step will likely require an assistant so while doing this I will have been shouting for Liz to get her butt here. Yes, I can be a bit of a nightmare to live with but at least I’m honest lol. So next I’m going to get my lovely assistant to hold Charlie, scuffed so we can do this as quickly as possible, and I am going to open his eye and squeeze the solution out of a new clean pad into the corner of his eye, pulling the eyelids back as best I can with one hand. Hopefully I’ll see what’s bothering him float up and out the eye. In any case my next step is going to be to give him a hug and gently massage circles over his eyelid from the tear duct down to where the lids meet then out to the corner. I’m going to work along both eye lids in this manner so that anything under the lids will hopefully be pushed out between the massage and the extra lubrication. I’ll then take a dry clean pad and wipe his closed eye, again from the tear duct to the corner, getting a fresh one each time, until it is clean and dry. Once I’ve done this, I can better evaluate the situation, and hopefully he feels much better. First, I’ll look at the eye. Is it swollen? Is it red? What colour is the stuff that came away from the eye on the pads? This might mean nothing to us but can be incredibly helpful to the vet. Moving forward I don’t want to irritate the eye more, so I’ll sit on my hands and try to only clean it twice a day. The exception to this is if I see pussy discharge from Charlies eyes throughout the day, in which case I’ll keep some of that saline on hand and clean pads and literally just clean the outer eye between these eye washes. Removing that discharge not only helps prevent it spreading but can stop his eye reinfecting, and if we’re really lucky his immune system will get the better of it. If his eye is swollen too putting some of these soaked pads, or used teabags, squeezed dry, into the fridge to cool can give me a DIY compress to help his discomfort. This depends on the ferret to an extent though because they do have to hold still, and if your fuzzie gets upset when scruffed probably better to leave it. You can use different types of tea bags. For example chamomile can be especially soothing, and Oregon grape and raspberry leaf are specifically used as ingredients (don’t wash your pets eye with them, I’m talking about teabags not tea here) in one of my herbal books for a pet safe astringent eyewash. So personally, if I’m stuck waiting on the vet, I’ll look up what herbs could help Charlies symptoms and look for a teabag at the shops I can use to just make him feel a bit better meantime. I would be actively avoiding anything like peppermint however since that would not be very comfortable near the eye at all. I would also be keeping Charlie separate and inside at this point. Mostly so I can keep an eye on him but I also want to check that he hasn’t hurt himself on anything in his enclosures, make sure his litter hasn’t turned dusty or that there’s anything in his bedding, one of my boys last year got an eye infection after accidentally poking himself in the eye with a feather! It can really be something and nothing with eyes which is why we always take it seriously. I’ll also want to check his cage mates have no symptoms and make sure it doesn’t spread to them. And then of course I would be getting some eye drops from the vet and following the directions until Charlies ready to go back out again. Tip; keep going for a couple of days after its healed. Quite common for it not to actually be gone, just look it once the body’s got on top of an infection. I hope someone finds this helpful. And I hope most people never need to think about this, and that the vets start seeing pets a bit quicker soon.
Bye for now xx