Introduction
Ferrets are unique because if they go into heat
and do not mate or are not spayed, can develop a severe, and even
life threatening anemia. This is because estrogen can cause the bone
marrow to stop producing red blood cells. If your female ferret
develops an enlarged vulva it should be brought in for an exam
immediately to determine if it is in heat or possible has an adrenal
gland problem.
Physiology
Female ferrets have a unique reproductive system.
Most female mammals have a heat cycle the phase in and out of,
whether they mate or not. Ferrets are induced ovulators, and will
stay in heat until they mate.
While in heat a female ferrets secrete high levels of estrogen.
If this hormone stays in the blood for a prolonged period of time, as what occurs
when the female does not mate, it will affect the bone marrow. The white blood
cells are not produced in adequate numbers, and the ferret becomes much more
susceptible to an infection. Also, a serious anemia will arise, and will be
life threatening if not corrected.
If your ferret is not being bred then it must be
spayed or the problem of life threatening bone marrow suppression
will present itself when it goes into heat.
Pre-Operative
Preparation
Please take away all food and water the morning of surgery
(do not fast a ferret for more than 4 hours) and bring your pet to the hospital
between 7:30 AM and 9 AM the day of surgery. It will go home in the late afternoon
the day of surgery. Please call our office at 4 PM for pickup time, you will
be given post operative instructions then.
Pre-anesthetic preparation is important in
every surgery we perform, no matter how routine, because surgery is not an area
to cut corners. All of our spays receive a physical exam prior to surgery. Only
if they pass this exam will we draw a small amount of blood for an in-hospital
pre-anesthetic test.
When everything is to our satisfaction we will administer a sedative. This will
calm the pet down and make the administration of the actual anesthetic, along
with post operative recovery, much smoother. Once a pet is anesthetized,
prepared for surgery, and had its monitoring equipment hooked up and reading
accurately, the surgery can begin.
Surgery
This area contains graphic
pictures of an actual surgical procedure performed at the hospital.
It may not be suitable for some children (and some adults
also!).
The first step in the surgical process
requires an incision in the skin and muscles of the abdomen. There is
a specific anatomical location where the incision in the muscle is made,
called the linea alba. An incision here bleeds very little and gives
us a strong tendon to hold sutures when we close the incision. In this
picture the skin incision has already been made and we are using a scalpel
to incise the linea alba.
A scissors is used to extend the linea alba incision. Now we have access to the abdominal structures.
This
incision gives us a full view of the abdomen and its
structures. Before we can find the uterus we commonly
encounter fat, intestines, spleen, and even urinary
bladder.
The
uterus needs to be exteriorized from the abdomen for the
spay to proceed. In this view one horn of the uterus is
exposed. The arrow points to the location of the ovary,
buried in fat.
Sutures
are placed around the ovary and it is removed form the
abdominal cavity along with the rest of the uterine
horn.
The
same procedure is performed on the other ovary. The black
arrows point to the ovaries that were just removed. The
blue arrow to the right points to the location where the
uterus will be removed from the body. Everything to the
left of this blue arrow is removed during the
procedure.
This is what remains
at the cervix after it has been sutured and the rest of
the uterus removed. This small amount of remaining uterus
will be placed back into the abdomen.
It
is very important that the linea alba is properly
resutured. a hernia with actual spillage of abdominal
organs can occur if the sutures aren't placed
properly.
When
all of the sutures have been placed (in this case they
are stainless steel) there is a solid seal in the linea
alba. These sutures cause minimal tissue reaction and
have tremendous holding ability. They will stay with this
pet for the rest of its life, and will even show up on an
x-ray of the abdomen.
Several
different types of sutures can be put in the skin
incision. This type, called subcuticular, makes is
difficult for the ferret to chew them out because the
sutures are under the skin surface. These sutures will
dissolve by themselves, so there is no need to remove
them.
At this point in the surgery a pain
injection will be given and the patient
allowed to wake up slowly. She will be ready to go home late in the afternoon,
and by the next day, will resume her normal activity.
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