Dawn, I'm so sorry to hear about Smidgeon.  There's no way you could have
known and unfortunately, your story is all too familiar.  Bring home a baby
ferret and the rest of the group gets ECE.  We hear it around here all the
time.  We try to warn people, but it's usually the ones that are not club
members and really don't know about this.  Marshall Farms "claims" it sends
out ECE information (ours!) to pet stores, but who out there can say they
ever got that information when buying a MF baby ferret?  It doesn't seem
likely that pet stores are going to say, "Here, read this because if you
buy one of our ferrets, your others could become deathly ill."
 
There is not much you could have done other than not bring home the baby
ferret.  Keeping the baby separated from the others for anything less than
six months or more would have been useless.  And, even if you did keep them
separate for that long, you would have had to practice extreme sterility
measures, a difficult task in a normal household.  One slip and your guys
would have become infected.
 
Your kids are going to be carriers for at least six months and possibly up
to a year.  Any ferret you bring into the house that has not already had
ECE will surely get it if you wait any less.  The only ones that would be
safe would be those that have already had it.  That seems to include most
baby ferrets in pet stores these days, but there's no way to know that for
sure.
 
As to how long you can expect the symptoms to last... it varies depending
on the health and age of the ferrets, but I think it's reasonable to say
you should be prepared for setbacks and abnormal stool for a couple months.
 
For the ferrets,
Mike
 
* Michael F. Janke, [log in to unmask]
* Secretary, South Florida Ferret Club & Rescue
* A 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation
*
* Shelter web site:  http://www.miamiferret.org
* Adrenal/Insulinoma web site: http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc
[Posted in FML issue 2880]