>I didn't know that the kit vaccine used by that one breeder is a mink
>vaccine that does not work well on ferrets.  Did you?

We are aware that the RCF breeder in Manitoba uses DISTEM-R-TC, which
is primarily a mink vaccine.

We did have a significant number of RCF ferrets, as the regional
distributor used them exclusively for several years, but has since
gone back to Marshall Farms.

We have collected the data, and are going through it, but we want to
make sure that apparent connections are real before we publish them.

For example, that same breeder's ferrets are known to commonly have
mycoplasmosis infections, and we thought that perhaps that caused a
depressed immune response, thus rendering the vaccine less effective.
Fortunately we didn't publish that idea since it has been disproven:
We had necropsies done on a couple of RCF ferrets, by Matti Kiupel's
lab (he is the one who originally identified this disease), where they
ruled out mycoplasmosis in those ferrets. So that was not the cause,
at least not in all cases.

The other thing is that most of the hard work gathering the information
and organizing it was done by Debbi Walcker and Vondelle, from our
shelter, and they should get to present the data that they worked so
hard on.

Kevin Farlee

[Posted in FML 7100]