To help people understand more about the minority of ferrets who react
to good vaccines (not bad batches which can cause problems for more
individuals) here is a site that is about the reactions in humans but
it gets across the basics very well and those also apply to ferrets:
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~aair/anaphylaxis.htm
 
Apologies to Stephenie, I have been a bit grumpy with my lungs, and I
should have realized that perhaps it was still unknown what was going on
to cause the foot malformations.  I shouldn't have let not feeling well
affect my tone or writing.  (And BTW, No, Steph did NOT ask for any
apology -- she has too much class and grace to do so.  I just figured
it was appropriate for me to give one after re-reading my letter today.
I know it wasn't really terrible or anything, but it wasn't considerate,
either.)
 
Age at altering discussion starting in the Ferret mailing List: there
has been a lot on the various up and downsides of the variations of this
topic in the Ferret Health List and there is some very interesting stuff
in there on it, esp. Dr. Ruth Heller's points which are incredibly
important to remember:
 
http://www.smartgroups.com/message/viewdiscussion.cfm?
gid=1423922&messageid=10375
 
http://www.smartgroups.com/message/viewdiscussion.cfm?
gid=1423922&messageid=10362
 
I'll have to make time to carry over more vet posts again.  Just haven't
been able to recently.
 
This is like the discussion of vaccines.  Just as it is easy to forget
that most folks these days don't know a good number of people with polio,
or don't know a lot of ferrets with distemper -- it is also easy to
forget that we aren't hearing of a pile of female kits who are dying of
anemia due to not being spayed, and not hearing of a lot of male kits
being thrown out of their homes for stinking and sliming... Be sure to
read those discussions.
 
The USDA is seriously considering the 8 week national limit for sales and
transport and has sent out letters that it is inclined that way*, and is
also discussing species specific considerations for farms, transport and
distributors with a group of vets headed by Dr. Sandra Kudrak.  Changes
to these things historically take a lot of time so the progress so far
has been faster than usual, but it still could take an unknown amount of
time.  (The USDA does not set controls over others at all, and most pet
store and independent breeder (unless large or selling to retail)
regulations come from the states.)
 
*  See http://www.ferretcongress.org
for part of this and the rest is pers coms.
[Posted in FML issue 4623]