Tracy, I'm sorry to say but your vet is wrong.  Vaccination reactions
happen all over the country.  Just becuase he has never seen it does not
mean that you should not have a care.  Please listen to the experience of
people who have nearly lost, and in some cases *did* lose their ferrets
to reactions.  I have had two ferrets have reactions now, one who will not
get his distemper vaccination again because he's reacted twice, despite
pretreating.  Please use the numerous ferret resources on the net and
research the subject and give the info to your vet, who is obviously not
aware of the risk.  It is a relatively small risk, but it is a risk.  You
may NEVER have a reaction, and we all hope you don't, BUT, one reaction,
one time, can kill.  I have experienced it, many other people here have
experienced it, and we can tell you that specialist or not, your vet is
wrong and it DOES happen.  I would hope that you would want to be safe
rather than sorry.
 
No, you don't need to stay up all night and watch them.  I did have a VERY
unusual situation where a reaction was delayed by several hours (we're not
sure why, but after extensive searching it was the only thing he *could*
have reacted to), but that's VERY rare, I've never heard of another long
delay.  My reccomendation would be, like with a small child, to not worry,
but plan for a nice night in, so on that one in a million chance that
something bizzare like what happened to me happens, you're home.  But it's
safe to say that reactions mostly happen within the first hour.  Stay at
the vet (take a book or something to do) for at LEAST 45 mintues (there
have been many stories posted here about people staying the recomended 30
minutes and the ferrets started having reactions on the way home, or just
when they got home...I had a case like that too.) More importantly,
educate your vet.
 
The talk and warnings are not because it IS going to happen, but because
IF it happens, a ferret can die.  I think most people never have problems,
your vet hasn't seen it, my vets hadn't heard of it either, but that
doesn't mean that you shouldn't take a little extra time to ensure a bit
of safety :-)
 
on how many ferrets:
 
3 is good...I have 5, lots of people have more.  But the important thing
to remember is...how many can you care for?  If you feel that you can only
handle two, then two is the right number :-)  I responded to the original
post privately, and I agree that for the benifit of the ferrets, three is
better than two.  But, as things can often be taken wrong here, I don't
want people to get the impression that if they can't afford three or take
care of three, they shouldn't have two (though I'm sure some of you would
be of that opinion).  What you DO want to avoid is getting more than you
can handle and then not wanting to have any at all!  Most people I think
would think that three is not that much more work than two, but that may
not be the case for everyone.  However many you have, enjoy!
 
Sue M.
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[Posted in FML issue 3458]