Good job on your new newsletter!  I read the heartworm articles and am
sorry that you have met that parasite.
 
We are lucky that it is rare here, though we have our own problem
parasites.  NJ leads the country in Lyme rates because ground nesting
rodents are the disease reservoir and white footed mice -- which do very
well in NJ -- are the optimal rodent host for deer tick nymphs.  In NJ in
studies the Lyme Disease infection rate among tested ticks has been 20 to
40 percent.  No, deer are not the disease reservoir at all for this
disease; they are just a common host for the same tick stages as about 30
types of wildlife, several domestic animals, and humans.  BTW, this is
already a bad tick year in some parts of the country, including here.
They have come under discussion -- with some very useful info and URLs --
in the Ferret Health List on Smartgroups recently and you can find those
posts by going to either the site or the archives with the archives
probably being the easier:
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth
There is even one ASPCA Poison Control link at the end of a post where
I to the procedures used for controlling West Nile and how they do or
do not impact of pets, but all of the rest are tick related.
 
Back to heartworm: Since the initial review of studies on Proheart use in
dogs showed that problems are extremely rare although highly publicized I
hope that Proheart will again become available.  It is the only thing so
far with a high rate of success at saving ferrets who already have
heartworm so is a very important med to have available for ferret health.
It is sad to realize that there are ferrets who could have been saved but
who have died due to it not being available during the review period.
 
See:
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/heartworm.htm
[Posted in FML issue 4899]