>What looks like ECE but isn't?  What else would cause those neon green
>slimeys Farrah and Spaz had?  What would cause the baby to go from fine to
>dead in less than 48 hours?
 
The green color is from rapid transit time and the slimy aspect is from
intestinal irritation, so ANYTHING which might cause those aspects -- and
there are multiple possibilities.
 
ECE tends to be a very mild disease in kits and it almost never kills
ferrets, let alone all of the ferrets in a household.  This and other
aspects simply did not fit with ECE.
 
I hope that the shelter ferrets don't come down sick; time will tell.
Meanwhile, I expect that you must have told the shelter folks before the
interactions with all the ferrets since that is only fair.
 
 ---
Shannon wrote:
>I use Shepherd & Green's Ferret Ear Wash.  It (and I think I've seen some
>other brands that also do) has a long, narrow cone-shaped applicator for
>an opening.  I hold my ferrets in my lap with their head sideways, then
>drop a few drops into their ear.  Then just gently massage their ear
>around.  When I'm done, they sling any excess out & look up for a treat!
>That is actually the way the directions say to do it, and it is much
>easier & quicker that trying to manage the q-tip thing.  And I've never
>had problems with it not getting their ears clean.
 
Agreed about the oily types and the ways to use them, and on the FHL a
few weeks back either Katherine or Patty mentioned a new trick that makes
it even easier: use a dropper to put the drops in.  Some individuals are
very prone to bad earwax (even with mites, or infections) so need q-tips
anyway, but the oily forms of ear cleaners not only are far less prone to
irritating and feeling cold than the alcohol based ones, but they float
the dislodged wax very, very well.
 
Of course, when there are ear mites or infections then there is more to
do; and any ferret with profuse, smelly, thick, or dark wax has to be
checked.  If you look in the past posts of the FML (See the header on how
to use the archives.) or the FHL (See my other post for the address in
Yahoogroups.) you'll find some fine posts about such things, with my
personal favorites being from vet, Jerry Murray.
 
 ---
 
Re: Yahoo: in less than a week the UK section of Yahoo will be down for
maintenance for three days as per http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/ , but that
message is not present so far for the US http://groups.yahoo.com/ so we
expect that the FHL will be up, but inaccessible for a few days to the
UK members.  If you are in the UK and need to look up something in the
Files, Pending, Archives, or other parts of the FHL do it soon.
[Posted in FML issue 3718]