Mike Capps wrote:
>We got a 6ish year old little girl yesterday............ we decided to
>give everyone a bath....We rushed her to the vet but she passed away
>in my arms on the way.

Unless something can obviously be seen, only a necropsy can give you an
answer (hopefully). I hope you continued on to the vet clinic and asked
for this to be done. It is certainly important to find out whether she
might have succumbed to something that could have been passed to your
other ferrets.

I have written privately to the poster but feel a couple of comments
are in order, to serve as a reminder to all of us. First, Mr. Capps has
recently had an ECE outbreak in his household. The first rule of any
such virus is not to bring any new ferrets in, or allow any ferrets out
for 8-12 months. With the current mutant strains of ECE out there, I
suggest a full year before adding any ferrets. VIruses can live for a
very long time in the environment. While I'm sure the virus couldn't
have infected and killed this little girl that quickly, she certainly
would have been subject to get it from the environment there, and could
have possibly caused a relapse in the household. With all the mutant
strains of this virus, ferrets could be reinfected.

Secondly, we should NEVER introduce any new ferrets immediately. A
quarantine period of 2-4 weeks should be done to insure the new ferret
isn't carrying any diseases, and has been vaccinated and vet checked.
This is also the perfect time to bond with the new ferret one-on-one.

These two basic rules can save a life.

Katharine
Florida

[Posted in FML 6760]