Dayna, have you tried going to http://www.ferretcongress.org
and used the URLs in the Critical References section there for the
assorted (each different) lists of recommended ferret vets?
 
EVERYONE should keep the URL above handy because it no only has so much
info but can take a person to so much more.  Pays to bookmark this one,
folks!
 
Alexandra, Ashling must have felt sorry for your African Violet because
she sent two parsley plants and three nasturium plants to join it late
yesterday.  (Actually the soil in carpet should now be dry enough to
clean up when the e-mail is done...)  They will visit with your plants,
Amy's and those of others.  This was no small feat on Asling's part.
That planter is up on a tall stand.  She had to climb four things to work
her way over enough to jump in there.  She must have felt very sorry for
your little green one.  Couldn't possibly have had anything to do with
mouth crunch and paw feel... I hope the salvageable bit of one nasturtium
roots in bottle on the window sill.  They sometimes do.
 
I'll take what Tara said one step further: NOTHING replaces hands-on care
by a vet -- NOTHING.  That can be supplemented, like providing info from
a reference for vet consideration which is a way many of us have helped
over the years, but (as I am sure everyone agrees -- and I am speaking
generally and not to any instance partly because I simply don't know the
particulars of the instances and honestly don't have to time to learn
them) the people who have the ferrets do obviously need to have vets make
the health choices and honor the vets' expertise on health matters.  I'm
just using this topic platform to dive into a new offshoot which was
*not* the case in this instance: that no one should leave out vet care
and expertise, or imagine that there could be a substitute.  The people
involved knew that and sought vet care.  The folks who scare me are the
ones who don't know that, or who don't act on that knowledge, or who make
excuses for not seeking care.  Those are entirely different types of
people, but such people do exist.  I've encountered too many of them.
For these other people hearing a comment about a ferret not wanting to
be at the vet may give them just the excuse they want to be negligent in
terms of providing sufficient vet care; it is a comment that could easily
be misused by some people.  Hope I've expressed that clearly enough.  Let
the vets examine, treat and diagnose.  Share info or suspicions, yes, but
vets are the health experts and respecting that fact will only help a
ferret.  (Repeat: I am NOT addressing any of the specific situations
mentioned here; I am voicing my very real FEAR based upon having run into
some OTHER folks here and elsewhere who simply don't provide vet care and
are guilty of negligence in my viewpoint, and how the concepts of animal
communicators and various forms of psychic healing could easily be
misused by such people and result in needless suffering or even deaths of
ferrets.)
[Posted in FML issue 4079]