Oops ..  I have just realised here I have been babling away on the FML
without a proper introduction.
 
I am Julia Lucas BSC BVMS ( equivalent to a DVM in the States) and currently
undertaking an MVS in veterinary pathology.  My husband Anthony is also a
vet.  And we just love our ferrets and ferret medicine.  Unfortunately we
are pretty much alone here in Melbourne as our colleagues with similar
interests are spread over Australia. Thus we offer our point of view as more
of an interest to our colleagues who may be listening than as trying to
resolve specific cases.  We hope this may prove interesing and hopefully a
little informative - who knows we may even be of some help  :-)
 
Our point of view should be regarded as  uniquely Australian as we have a
completely different range and incidence of disease in ferrets here.  This
comes to the apology.  I did not quite get the Bordatella story straight
when I say it has been isolated here I don't mean it is a major problem...
but certainly isolated cases have treated as if it were the problem and have
been sucessfully resolved.
 
A SNIPPET ABOUT VET PRACTICE IN AUSSIE.  A couple of strange differences is
we don't seem to see many tumours in ferrets - but that may be because A)
Aussie vets don't look for them B) most Ausssie ferret owner are hunters so
don't take their ferrets to vets as much???? I don't know....C) it isn't as
common in our ferrets because our genetics/ breeding/ health programmes are
different???? Any suggestions from our USA and Canadian Colleagues would be
appreciated.  As yet no one undertakes immature desexing and descenting of
ferrets routinely, there is no large company suppying ferrets and the focus
is still on hunting and rabbit control.Also there is insufficent market for
specific veterinary ferret products so we are forced to adapt canine
vaccines, heartworm treatment etc.
 
NUTRTION.  Also on nutrution we also have a British company "Walthams" that
produces a competitive product to IAMS which we use as well as IAMS.  And we
have "Hill's" which is supposedly a US company that produces another
supposedly suitable food.  Any feedback ??? These are still relatively new
products to our ferret owners.
[Posted in FML issue 1661]