Dear ferret fans,
 
I think it's about tme to introduce my family and me. I've joined the
ferret list about a month ago in order to get as much information about
these wonderful creature as we can.
It has been nearly 3 months since we adopted Sunny, our 13 month old sable
ferret, at the NH SPCA. A week later, we found out that my wife Martha was
pregnant. We got real happy and start thinking of the 4 members of the
family: Martha, myself, Sunny and the baby.
It was very easy to get 'addicted' to Sunny. She is so cute, playful,
obedient and learns everything we teach with a speed that my dogs in the
past never did!
After our first visit to the pre-natal care, nevertheless, we got alarmed:
the doctor warned about the geat risks of having a pet (specially
carnivour) in contact a pregnant woman: TOXOPLASMOSIS. He recommended to get
rid of our Sunny.
However, Martha was already exposed, since Sunny is allowed free in the
house most of the time when we're home. Martha never cleaned the
litter-box. I always did it. But as we know, ferrets always rub their
rears in the floor after leaving the litter-boxes...which means that
if Sunny has the parasite, the cysts can have reached Martha! We kept Sunny
after talking to our Vet, who said 'it's easy to get toxoplasmosis by
eating a steak than through your ferret. Don't worry'. Our routine was
not altered either: we still have Sunny free in the house.
Martha is 5 months pregnant now and it is too late for anything, but
since this disease keeps hauting us, we would like to know if anyone else
in the list had this sort of experience (pregnancy and recently
adopted ferrets) or have any extra information about ferrets and
toxoplamosis.
Thanks for the patience in reading this long article!
Ilson, Martha & Sunny
 
P.S. I apologize for the (bad) quality of my english. We're a brazilian
family studying in NH. And yes, we do plan to take Sunny with us back home when
we're done. Maybe Sunny will be the first pet ferret there!...But do not
worry about the heat, I leave in the south (average temperature ~ 65 F)
 
[Posted in FML issue 0924]