Does anyone recall if the place which had those food dyed ferrets was
also the one that used pigs to eat the ferret droppings as a way to
clean up? Someone did, but I can't remember who.
Yeah, I know -- pretty horrid. It goes beyond that, though. It is
simply a big mistake as far as zoonotic diseases go. Both ferrets and
pigs, as well as poultry, are animals in which influenza tends to
alter, too often in ways that prove nasty. Having them on the same
small farm is not smart health-wise.
I would love to see regulations that set some national standards for
what animals could not be farmed in close proximity of each other on
a commercial farm, and I would like that not only for health reasons.
Many of the places which do the nastiest forms of dog, cat, and ferret
mill/backyard breeder farming in the U.S. are also working farms for
their owner's food stocks. Having to keep the pet stocks away from
poultry and from ungulates due to some bad, shared zoonotic diseases
would cause some of those places to shut down their abusive pet
farming, and usually health related regulations have bigger teeth
in legal actions than animal abuse laws do.
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.htmlhttp://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/http://www.ferretcongress.org/http://www.trifl.org/index.shtmlhttp://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
[Posted in FML 5709]
