The person with the E. coli problem had the ferrets get it from chickens (which is why I went into the nuances of pre-slaughter fattening up in some farms since E. coli can be transmitted from cattle slaughter debris given the chickens). As happens with shiga toxin producing E. coli the person's ferrets who are infected are anemic with bloody diarrhea and kidney problems. Horrible disease... Sometimes it can be prevented by getting alerts from the FDA and USDA and then not feeding the things being recalled but sometimes the problem isn't yet known about. http://www.fsis.usda.gov/News_&_Events/2008_news_releases/index.asp http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/default.htm 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 "All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow." (2010, Steve Crandall) [Posted in FML 6785]
