>feces, fixed or fresh small intestine or fresh whole animals, there is
>no charge, but we need to make sure what is coming.  I am not allowed to
>take dozens of these from everywhere and can only do selected work that
>is important from our perspective and not make free of charge diagnoses.
 
The pathologist will be working with people's own vets.  As you see from
the quote above, the aim is NOT to provide diagnoses, but instead to
provide (free) more extensive work into the recurrent coccidia that is
hitting ferrets this year, with hopes of learning more.  This year is
seeing an unusual number of deaths from coccidia in people's posts.
 
Obviously, if the animal is alive only feces will be able to be
contributed, but if ones are lost then tissues would be appreciated.
 
Coccidia causes intestinal illness in ferrets (but has been found in
other organs in some other creatures though I don't know about ferrets
in that regard).  When the "blooms" in the intestinal tissue happen
simultaneously there can be too much blood loss which can be fatal.
It is not always easy to find in fecal specimens.  The med of choice
is Albon and typically every one of the animals must be treated at the
same time.  There is a lot in the FHL Archives about it.
 
Those with candidate animals who have coccidia and would like to
participate to help understand the current outbreak better should write
to me with information about the illness, general location, and contact
information on your vet for me to pass along to the pathologist who is
studying this.
 
-- Sukie (not a vet, and not speaking for any of the below in my
private posts)
Recommended health resources to help ferrets and the people who love
them:
Ferret Health List
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth
FHL Archives
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
AFIP Ferret Pathology
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
Miamiferrets
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
International Ferret Congress Critical References
http://www.ferretcongress.org
[Posted in FML issue 5290]