Just a personal note on the topic.

There is a lot of misinformation out there about ECE, some of it from
people who have called just about any GI illness ECE (even now some
people do that even though they could have testing done at Michigan
State or even could just have a general coronavirus test done though
that is not as good for several reasons), so let me briefly tell you
what it was like when it came to our home years ago with two kits.

The kits did well. All of the rest were at death's door for three
months. Literally. We could have lost any of them any day. Steve and I
slept in shifts to keep them going. One elderly one had it worsen her
heart disease so that even though she outlived the ECE she went far
earlier than she otherwise would have gone. One got colitis and lot of
permanent GI damage. One took severe kidney damage due to the extreme
dehydration and the kidney damage later killed him. So, even when the
worst of the illness was past all still needed special care for months
afterward and three needed extra special care each day afterward for
their very shortened lifetimes.

The stench was indescribable. It literally made our entire home stink
and we did not have a huge number of ferrets. The ferrets could barely
digest fats at all. The feces was slime, in some cases neon green
slime. The one with colitis from it also passed bloody mucus.

We had to warn friends with ferrets to not visit us and curtailed
where we went for a year after the symptoms had stopped because we
never would want to put anyone else through that.

That was before there were nasty mutants of ECE, too.

Never take ECE lightly. If someone writes of having it enter their
homes and being easy then if you dig a little deeper you will find that
they did not have the needed testing and they are mistakenly using the
term "ECE" for any GI problem, just as some people mistakenly call
bacerial sinus infections "colds".

This is something no one wants to risk getting into one's home, but
because it can come in with ferrets who are not yet showing symptoms,
and because kits shedding the virus may not show symptoms at all but
can shed infective virus for a good 10 months, it is something which
can happen to anyone.

Sukie (not a vet)
Ferrets make the world a game. (but not when you are sleeping
shifts to get them through ECE for a good many months)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
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 7481]