Dear Christina:
>Bandit's real sick and it seemed to happen suddenly.  I recently added a
>new kit to our family, I figured Bandit needed a playmate since the cats
>can't be bothered with him.  I got the kit on Sunday and keep him
>seperate from Bandit, Bandit smells him a little and runs away.  Since
>Sunday Bandit's been depressed like, walking around the house and then
>laying flat down.  He's not interested in playing either.  Last night,
>Monday I heard Bandit throwing up under the bed.  I lifted the bed to
>find fluid that looked like the babyfood he had eaten, there were a
>couple of puddles of it.  Today (Tuesday) I woke to found several puddles
>in the bathroom of vomit (resembled babyfood again) and he had urined on
>the floor too.  Now I'm confused as to whether he's spitting up and it's
>coming from the back end too???  His poops looked funny too, loose and
>greenish cast???
 
I have cross-posted this to the FML so that everyone is reminded of the
progression of classic epizootic catarrhal enteritis, or ferret
coronavirus.
 
This very contagious disease is generally spread by asymptomatic kits, and
starts with vomiting, followed by the passage of greenish mucousy stool.
 
I know that you have already been told about ECE, and the ECE FAQ has
been forwarded to you.  I might suggest that you visit my page at
http://www.afip.org/ferrets
and learn more about ECE.  You may also let your vet know that I published
my findings with this disease (still the only article in the veterinary
literature on this disease to date) in the Journal of the American
Veterinary Medical Association in Aug 15.  Some vets feel better about
believing in a disease when they read about it in a journal, rather than
from the WWW.
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams, DVM
 
P.S.  I know that this is a very stressful time, but if you could take a
moment and save some of the feces - we are currently working on vaccine
developement, and could really use feces from acute cases to recover the
virus.  If you freeze it now, when things quiet down, we can talk about
getting to my lab.
[Posted in FML issue 3321]