If female ferrets go into heat and do not mate or are not spayed, they 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.

This page contains graphic pictures of an actual surgical procedure performed at the hospital. 

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.

Anesthesia

Pre-anesthetic preparation is important in every surgery we perform, no matter how routine. All of our spays receive a physical exam prior to surgery. After 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.

This is a sterile abdominal surgery, and our surgeon starts the pre-surgical process by using special soap to clean his hands

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While our patient is being anesthetized our surgeon is already in our surgical suite setting up instruments. Our surgeon is ready to start before our patient is at a proper plane of anesthesia. Once the anesthetist gives the green light the surgery starts immediately. We want our surgeon waiting for his patient, not the other way around.  All of this is to minimize anesthetic time.

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We keep a close tab on important physiologic parameters for all of our surgeries. Monitors like this give us an early warning of an impending problem.

This machine monitors:

Temperature
Heart Rate
Heart rhythm
Oxygen saturation
Carbon dioxide level
Respiratory rate

Surgery-Monitor

In addition to our monitoring equipment our anesthetist stays “hands on” in monitoring important physiologic parameters

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Surgery

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.