Glad he's still with you.
 
>Well, after owning ferrets for 11 years, it finally happened -- one of my
>ferrets had a reaction to Fervac.  What I'm curious about is, why at the
>age of 4 is she now having a reaction?
 
Reactions ABSOLUTELY require previous exposures to whatever the trigger is
(or to a something similar enough that it can be generalized).  If you will
let me just go a bit into reactions with humans and go from there: the most
common time to develop allergies is in one's twenties.  Food allergies
(which actually are rare though a lot of people call their sensitivities
allergies) tend to be to the foods most commonly eaten, so favorite foods
or culturally common foods (wheat in the U.S., rice in southern Asia, etc.)
tend to be typical causes.  There are some foods which seem to be more
likely to trigger reactions.  The prevalence of reactions to a thing can
change in a population over time for unknown reasons; such as the increase
in severe reactions to potatoes which I read about a while back.  As you
can see, once a bit is known about how reactions happen and what the norm
is it makes complete sense that her reaction did not happen at an early
point rather than now.
 
>I went to my regular vet and we talked about how neither of us had ever
>had reaction problems before.  And, of course, today was the day I DIDN'T
>stay ... Within five miles of my departure, Hannah, who is 4, began
>throwing up and pooping on everyone else.  I saw her face and her nose was
>bright red.  At a stop light I pulled her out and looked at her and her
>paw pads were bright red too.  Then her tail fuzzed out, she went limp,
>and began panting.
 
That's why people ALWAYS have to wait.  We try to wait for about 45 minutes.
 
>You have never seen anyone turn around so fast in your life!
 
Faster.  Had one appointment in which two related ferrets collapsed
completely within seconds of each other.  One had her shot 10 minuted
before and the other had her's maybe 5 minutes before.  They were
completely unconscious as their first signs.
 
>She never had bloody diarrhea or vomit -- she just barfed up food and
>pooped out some watery poop.  Nevertheless, the other indicators were
>there.
 
You are lucky it was that mild.
 
>I do have a question -- what was the average age your ferret first had a
>reaction?  Hannah is 4, and has had Fervac for years.  Showed no signs of
>anything last year.  Why is this happening at this age, instead of younger?
 
Well, it's just from rough memory of the several only -- except for almost
four year old Jumper who did it this year, but I think we've seen it in age
three or four, maybe one was five.
 
Important reminder: Merial is working on a new Recombitek CDV vaccine which
has not had caused vaccine reactions in testing as far as I know.  This
will still be a while, but it will ba an important advance.  DO remind all
vets to let Merial their level of interest in such a vaccine.  This vaccine
also has worked well in zoo exotics which are susceptible so it has
positive conservation implications as well.
[Posted in FML issue 3127]