Tips when there is rapid ferret math:
1. Begin a savings account for ferret health emergencies.  People who
are new to ferrets tend to not realize how expensive ferret health care
can be.
 
2. If the ferrets are all about the same age bracket also emotionally
prepare yourself for a hard time about 7 or so years down the line, and
realize that at the age of about 5 (earlier for those with neural crest
genetic variant markings like blaze heads, panda heads, etc.) twice
yearly exams and testing can be needed to help catch problems early and
allow the most successful responses.
 
3. Know that the info in most to all of the general write-ups on
ferrets -- assorted manuals on line and in print -- is out of date for
some ferret medical problems such as adrenal neoplasia.
 
4. Read up on ferret medical health in reputable resources, trying to
notice what is known and what is still hypothetical (though not all
people are as frank as they could be on that score when they have
personally favored hypotheses).  Because ferret people already have a lot
on our plates in terms of economic needs -- like still needing to support
our own shelters instead of usually using the general animal shelters in
most areas -- nowhere near enough money gets contributed to the charities
like Morris Animal Foundation to advance ferret medical research, so a
lot of speculation goes on and gets reported early meaning that sometimes
it can be hard to know what is proven from what is hypothetical.
 
Also, always look at the dates of what you are reading if those are
present because even when a post is right for its time (or simply for a
person's own experiences and limitations) things do change over the
years!
 
I suggest beginning with recent general write-ups by vets.  There are
things which are just plain blatant errors in a number of the others.
With vets' posts there can be changes over time as more is learned, but
non-vets are more inclined to make plain old mistakes or to ignore what
they don't like, and it is possible to miss a person's later corrections,
plus not all own up on that score, so give preference to ferret vets'
posts and especially to those vets' recent posts.  Don't assume that
someone is a vet or has an applicable higher education; sometimes what
appears in claims doesn't match the reality when backgrounds are checked,
as came up recently in relation to pharmacognosy.  Those who are vets say
so almost always.  Here are a few of the vets whose RECENT posts and
write-ups in sites and magazine articles have educated me:
Dr Bruce Williams, Dr. Karen Purcell, Dr. Ruth Heller, Dr. Jerry Murray,
Dr. Deborah Kemmerer-Cottrell, Dr. Tom Kawasaki, Dr. Katrina Ramsell,
Dr. Mark Burgess, Dr. Karen Rosenthall.
 
Here are three fine places to begin:
A. Ferrets magazine always has articles by vets which have been
carefully edited to be accessible to non-vet readership.  These are
definite must-reads!
 
B. http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
is a site by Dr. Bruce Williams, ferret veterinary pathology expert.  I
suggest starting with the more recent articles which are written for use
by anyone, but don't think that you should necessarily skip the ones
written for vets because there is some very useful pieces of information
in those which help access suppositions presented to you later, whether
they are presented as hypothesis or as if they are facts.  I love the
article on Confusion and Controversy in Ferret Pathology and recommend it
to everyone; the part which tends to be needed the most on the FML and
FHL is the liver enzyme one on what poor eating, not eating often, or
having poor digestion can cause to happen in the liver -- both changes to
the liver itself and changes in test results.  (Not a surprise given that
wild mustelids stash carcasses for regular noshing.) I guess the ones
need most often after that are the white cell count parts (but most
people know that now), and the kidney section.
 
C. http://www.heidihoefer.com/pages/medical_newsletters2.htm
is the site of Dr. Heidi Hoefer which also has clearly written pieces to
help you.
 
When you are ready for more health info or want to read up on non-health
topics I suggest:
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org
easily searched health archives and its easy to see usually who is a vet
to read those posts preferentially, and also use the link to the FHL
itself to check the pages of the Files section or to pose a question
http://www.ferretcongress.org
the critical references (which I need to update)
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc
especially the recent vet posts which are great (realize that there are
some older things in there and non-vet notes, too)
http://listserv.cuny.edu/archives/ferret-search.html
the FML archives which are easily searched and are great for a range of
topics
 
5. Remember that the best people to listen to in terms of ferret health
are ferret vets.  There is no substitute for hands on care by a ferret
vet.  If you do not have one the IFC (ferretcongress) site above can link
you to a number of lists of ferret vets and specific ferret vet mentions
as can the two archives listed above.
 
Understanding the basics of common ferret health problems may help avoid
them, and also allows for rapid recognition of warning signs so that the
best outcome can result.
 
-- Sukie
BTW, if my old free-standing list of resources is still up or cached
anywhere it is very old, even predating the Ferret Health List's move to
Smartgroups several years ago.  The host never permitted me to change or
remove it.
[Posted in FML issue 4863]