Amy wrote:
>My vet suspected an infection based on the discharge, but that
>is all in the past, it turns out Miya *did* have adrenal and everything
>went back to normal.  It's just that this is the first time I've heard of
>the discharge associated with adrenal.
 
We've seen discharge, several sequential vaginal infections, and a partial
vaginal prolapse (Don't know if it's properly called a prolapse in this
case but it turned inside out partly and emerged into the world.) with an
adrenal neoplasia in the past.  It's not the norm here, but we've seen it.
Stick around long enough and you encounter many things...
 
Brief ferret mention in "Buffy" of a pound with animals waiting for loving
homes.
 
Some stuff my server appears to have swallowed:
 
TS3 wrote:
>ferrets are misclassified and... causes many many problems for the
>species, (eg >difficulty in inding knowledgeable vets, the rabies
>kill and test policy >instead of quarantines, etc.
 
The rabies kill and test policy was dropped when the data were known on
rabies shedding periods.  Contact your state public health vet in charge
of rabies policy, likely to still be Robert Johnson (unless he moved or
retired), 108 Cherry St., P.O. Box 70, Burlington 05402.  Get the
Compendium at http://www.avma.org by going into professional
resources/references and copying all THREE parts In places where state
rules and regs give more power to local depts.  people killing because
they don't bother to read data or to understand it is still a problem now
and then, and some emergency room physicians and local health officials
are still uninformed leading to demands for deaths and to some deaths, but
I don't think that VT has that difficulty.  You'd have to ask him about
that.  (This is a problem that locals can tackled by passing on the latest
Compendium of Animal rabies Control to such people; it's easy to do --
print, fold, stuff in envelop, address envelop, stick on a few stamps,
mail.) Most states follow the Compendium which was changed in a vote by the
National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians in early November
1997 and went into effect inmost states during 1998.  Public mistaken
opinions had nothing (zip, nada) to do with the process.  There were ten
years of very hard work -- first testing vaccines, then meeting USDA
requirements for the vaccines, then having the CDC test rabies strains to
know how long the viral shedding period is, and all along collecting the
monies to fund a decent chunk of the work, plus afterward there was the
follow-up and continues to be follow-up.  What mistaken public opinion HAS
done is to cause some ignorant people to overreact and demand testing when
they should not have done so, often involving court cases now-a-days as
with vaccinated dogs and cats, but it's not often.
 
Many vet schools don't teach "uncommon" animals that vets are less likely
to encounter, BTW.  It might be interesting for you to find which animals
are commonly taught and to compare the chances of most vets encountering
those compared to ferrets.  Might also be useful for you to find out how
long they have been available in pet stores to counteract the "fad"
perception.  The large farms would have that info for you.  Call places
like Marshall Farms which was in the pet trade early after Wendy Winstead
largely popularized them in the U.S.  or check for the first publishing
date on her first book.
 
Be sure to check out the natural history section at
http://www.ferretcentral.org
 
One thing that mistaken public opinion DOES still lead to are local bans on
ferrets, and the NYC website will help you on that score, as will the CA
ones.  Don't have addresses handy but expect the NYC one might show up
tomorrow in the FML given that a public hearing on legislation changes is
coming up in early Dec. and those who work so hard in the city to help
ferrets will want to announce it and post reminders, too.
 
You might want to search past FMLs for info, too.
 
You didn't think this would drop into your lap, did you? :-)  That
wouldn't do you any good at all. (LOL!)
 
[Moderator's note: I'm told a post about the hearing will be in tomorrow's
issue.  The NYC site is: http://members.aol.com/NYCFerrets    BIG]
[Posted in FML issue 3231]