First, to Morrow's mom, who asked whether ferrets who don't react to a
vaccine the first time can be expected to never react to that vaccine: I
believe the answer is NO, no ferret can ever be considered reaction- proof.
This is not from personal experience, but I have read on this list of people
whose ferrets reacted negatively to the second or fifth or tenth vaccine
after showing no reaction previously.  In fact, I think I remember reading
that ferrets never, or almost never, react to the first shot.  It is usually
the boosters that cause problems.
 
Now back to Trish's thread: how many shots should you give, and how often?
Trish wrote a great explanation of the reasoning behind her recommendation
that ferrets need more distemper shots in a series than most of us are used
to giving, but when I got done reading it, I was left wondering "if three
shots are better than two, why not four?" Heck, why not vaccinate every two
weeks for their entire lives?
 
As luck would have it, I found myself with unlimited free access to a vet
today.  It was at the Humane Society Dog Walkathon (McKenzie was awarded
honorary canine status for the day), and one of the events was called
Ask-A-Vet, except nobody but me had any questions.  What I learned further
illuminates what Trish wrote, and I pass it on in case any of the rest of
you are geeky graduate students who never know when to stop asking why.
 
Trish wrote that an animal's immune system response rises quickly after a
vaccination, then levels off, then begins to drop.  She argued that you want
to give subsequent shots before this drop begins, i.e. two weeks after the
previous one, not four.  Yes, said the vet, but this drop can begin as early
as two weeks, and as late as four (in an adult ferret).  That means you
definitely shouldn't wait beyond four weeks.  But, he said, if you give the
second shot too soon, much of its effect is wasted.  He feels three weeks is
a good compromise, but anywhere from two to four weeks is okay, and it's
impossible to know what's really best.  (As Trish said, immune system
responses are not easily measured.)
 
As for all those "extra" shots Trish recommended, he agreed that they were a
good idea if you were really concerned about maximum protection.  Here in
Western Montana, he said, distemper is pretty uncommon, so he continues to
recommend two shots four weeks apart for adults, three shots three weeks
apart for kits.  We also talked about when to start kits on their shots, and
he said (I think someone already posted about this) that the problem is that
you can't really tell when the protection from the mother's immune system
will begin to fail (could be any time after five weeks, I think he said), so
the safest thing is to start at five weeks.  Again, this may be overkill,
but then again it may not be.
 
This vet was a young guy without much ferret experience, but he said the
more he saw, the more he liked them.  We got to talking about ferret
resources on the internet, which seems to happen every time I talk to a new
vet.  I just tell them to go to Ferret Central and proceed from there,
rather than point them directly to ferret veterinary pages, because I figure
that way they'll know about Ferret Central and maybe point new ferret owners
there.  But that makes me think that maybe a good question to add to the
Ferret FAQ (are you listening, Pam?) is "My vet wants to know where she can
find ferret veterinary references on the internet.  What should I tell her?"
 
Anyway, Trish, you've made a convert out of me, especially since you said
you'd never seen a reaction from Galaxy-D (but to be safe, I vaccinate only
during business hours, and there's an animal hospital just three blocks
away).  Guess I'll be poking holes in my weasels for a while longer ("Jeez
Mom, you said we were all done with that...").  I'm going with three week
intervals, though.  Ten years from now when I'm a famous shelter mom like
you, we can statistically compare our results and publish a paper.  At the
rate these carpet sharks are slowing down progress on my research, it could
be the only paper I *ever* get published.  One of my fellow graduate
students got so tired of me going on and on about feral ferrets (NOT) that
he suggested I try to establish a feral population of ferrets for my PhD.
I'd give it a go if Mo' Bob hadn't done such a good job of making it sound
like a losing proposition (the worst thing that can happen to a graduate
student is having their research fail to produce results, you know).
 
But heck, I bet I could get some pretty good funding out of California
Fish & Game.  In fact, maybe we should write a nice big fat grant proposal
and see if we can drain their coffers a bit.  What do you think, Bob?
 
-- Kim, who thinks *anything* is more interesting than writing her
   real dissertation proposal
[Posted in FML issue 1939]