Not to worry!

Danee has not succeeded in breeding out the ding-dong gene, so when you
want to call on of her ferrets just ring a little clear bell. One that
rings in C seems to work especially well.

Added bonus: if you or your namesake are there and not feeling too well
with a sore throat you can use it to bring Dann to the rescue.

Yes, Pivot is too smart for her own good (or at least we tell ourselves
that it is for her own good) sometimes, too!

Me thinks grand dames secretly had ferrets and were not always ringing
for Jeeves.

More serious topics:

If ticks are the primary problem then Frontline works better for those
than Revolution BUT it does not work for the paralytic ticks of
Australia.

To prevent heartworm the full adult cat dose of Revolution is needed,
and yes, there actually has been a study on that. Check the archives
of the FML and FHL for posts on the topic from AFERRETVET on the FHL
or ones I carried to the FML here.
---

Ferrets CAN get H1N1 and at least one other strain of swine flu. In a
situation in which a colony of a thousand was accidently infected with
a different swine flu strain about 8% got the disease, and ferrets are
used in studies of the current variant.

The tricky thing about this virus is that when it goes wrong it can
more easily take up residence deep in the lungs than more common
influenza types (per studies in ferrets) but how easily it is
transmitted among ferrets varied a lot in the studies done.

The good thing is that the proportion of such serious cases appears to
be very small, perhaps smaller in individuals who have been vaccinated
against the standard avian flu variants that go around every year --
not a huge surprise because the H1N1 strain has gobbled some avian
influenza genetics into itself in recombinations. H1N1 also varies in
severity among populations, so pregnant women are at much higher risk
than most others, for example. In the U.S. among humans many of us
(though certainly not all) who were born before 1957 still have some
immunity from a previous wide spread of a swine flu so are afforded
some protection from that.

There is a quite a bit in the archives on this.

The big thing, of course, is to use the same precautions as with any
influenza: loads of long hand washes, stop kissing ferrets if may be
ill, etc.

What has WHO (World Health Organization) worried
1. when there is not decent medical care available the death rate goes
up quite a bit with this influenza
2. for all the worry is that it might at some point combine with one
of the nastier avian influenzas in a way that help one of those spread
more easily, or perhaps make this one more virulent. The first is more
likely than the second simply because viruses that survive best and
therefore are most likely to replicate well have these characteristics
1. They spread easily
2. They do not kill off their hosts (and that way can continue to
spread)

The primary hosts, of course, do not have to be humans.

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html

[Posted in FML 6413]