I am truly sorry to hear about all of this unfortune to the ferrets and their
owners on the ferret-list.  I would also like to tell you that I had just
purchased a ferret from Linda Harrah in Ohio on May 11th (11 days before her
first one was died).  Beepers has had her first two shots so far, and I just
called the vet to move her next appt up until this afternoon.  I seriously
hope our little girl does not have the disease, she is currently showing
annoyance and irritation in the rectum area.
 
I would just like to tell you that it is not suprising to me that the thread of
distemper came from her location.  At the time of our purchase of Beepers, she
had stated that a few ferrets were 'feeling ill'.  We did not go near those
ferrets, but stayed in a room with over 40 ferrets in it.  A lot of ferrets
had given birth to litters.  Beepers was 6 weeks old, and had not had her
first shot yet.  We took a tour of her house and found many more ferrets out
back and well over 30 cats and 2 possums and a few other animals that she was
keeping as pets.  We thought how good and wonderful this woman was to be
taking in injured and abused animals, though we thought that she had quite the
limit for her space.  She was very concerned about her ferrets going to good
homes, so we sat with her for over 2 hours, getting to know her, learning
ferret care, and playing with a few ferrets to find the one that we fit and
vice versa.  She seemed to really know what was going on, and was very
concerned over the care that her babys would recieve from the new owners.
 
The one thing that really irks me is that we gave her 4 phone numbers and
addresses to contact us in case she recieved some information
that would affect Beepers (we were thinking of genetic diseases at the
time), and she did not even attempt to contact any one of those numbers.  I
guess that we are lucky that we got Beepers then (we were supposed to wait
until a week later to go and choose a ferret, but scheduling only permitted us
to do it that day).  Hopefully we missed the outbreak, or at least the full
blown affect.
 
I know this sounds like a flame towards her (well, yes it is), but I think
that the condition that her animals were kept in (all the cats and possums and
animals (minus some ferrets) were indoor/outdoor pets) really instigated the
situation.  Therefore, the point of this note is that one should really
consider the origin of their next ferret.  I know that this is hard to do when
purchasing a ferret at a fair or such, but when going to the breeder's home,
BEWARE of the environment.  Granted, I was too excited about acquiring my
first ferret to notice much else, so I am more guilty on that point than anyone.
 
Good luck with everyone and their ferrets.  Beepers has her appt. this
afternoon for her last booster.  I know that we have had her for more than the
incubation period, but lately, she has had some irritation in her rectum area
which has caused me concern.  I had just attributed it to all of the chemicals
that we are using to rid our new home of fleas.  Hopefully, that is all that
her problem is.  Thanks for all the information, you all are wonderful for how
much you care about your own ferrets as well as others.
 
Susan and Beepers
 
[Posted in FML issue 0277]