Ah, you are curious about zoonotic diseases. Here are some resources for you: http://research.ucsb.edu/connect/acc/policy.html#Reservoir By animal type and you can also search by disease. But the mentions are by mammal ORDER so you then have to find out which ones may be seen in things like cats, dogs, bears, etc. instead of ferrets. For example for Carnivora it lists 5 things and you will notice for the last that rodents can transmit this, but then you need to find out if ferrets can get it. I don't have my texts handy so can't look that up right now that way, but you can always google on that disease name and ferret. Okay, I'm back later and that disease is not among the ones in _Biology and Diseases of the Ferret_, so you would not have found anything in a Google search most likely and that would have told you a great deal. Except for emerging diseases to some extent there is very good knowledge of what diseases ferrets do and don't get, largely because of them also being used in research. For instance, that is how it is known that they get Influenza A and sinus infections but don't get true colds (which are from rhinoviruses) so pharmaceuticals don't have the option of using them for that research (BTW, since sinus infections and the other respiratory things ferrets get can become more serious than colds it is important to not use the word "cold" as a catch-all because you might miss treating something in a timely fashion). http://medicine.bu.edu/dshapiro/zoo1.htm This one you can search by animal and look for overlaps but the mustelid section is incomplete (focusing only on two serious diseases) compared to resources like _Biology and Diseases of the Ferret_ and I suspect the new _Ferrets, Rabbits and Rodents_ though I have not yet read the Zoonoses section in that text. http://www.vetmed.wisc.edu/pbs/zoonoses/ http://vetmedicine.about.com/od/zoonotic/ http://www.tc.umn.edu/~devo0028/zoonos.htm http://www.vetinfo.com/zoonose.html http://www.vspn.org/LIBRARY/WWWDirectory/Mammals_Small_Exotic.htm Here is a diseases of research animals site which has a specific mouse section and a specific ferret sectionso using it interactively with the sites above to get more disease details may be useful as long as you remember that it is not thorough and it is not limited to zoonoses so be sure to pull up the zoonoses write-ups specifically: http://www.vin.com/WebLink.plx?URL=http://www.radil.missouri.edu/ RADILinfo/dora/Dora.htm http://www.afip.org/vetpath/POLA/99/Pathology_of_the_Ferret-Williams.htm (from 1999) with this reference: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi? cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2676931&dopt=Citation http://www.ferret.org/pdfs/newsletter/95zoonotic.pdf (pdf from 1998) http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/pubs/oldbib/ferretla.htm Anyway, that's actually enough of a set of leads and bibliographic info for someone to easily do a bit of a small college level paper on the topic if desired! LOL! It should be more than enough to reassure you. If you need or want more: http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0305&L=ferret-search &P=R2102 http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0401&L=ferret search &P=R6804 http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0306&L=ferret-search &P=R12012 http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0002&L=ferret-search &P=R40523 and search separately under zoonoses, zoonotic, and zoonosis in http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org If I recall right mice don't get rabies (but I have not checked) but ferret info on that is available at these 2: http://www.avma.org/pubhlth/rabcont.asp (The Compendium of Animal Rabies Control) http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rabies/Ques&Ans/q&a.htm (Easy to read rabies Q&A) [Posted in FML issue 4599]
