First of all, PLEASE don't flame me as I'm having a very hard time right now!!! As I've told everyone on the list, I just recently opened a ferret shelter in Blacksburg, VA. As far as I knew my ferrets had never been exposed to ECE and neither had the ferrets that are currently residing in my care as shelter residents. Noone has ever shown signs for it so I didn't think it was a problem in my home. Two weeks ago someone found a tiny female ferret and surrendered her to me. She was a little thin but otherwise was in excellent health. Tuesday night I noticed the dreaded green slime poop. She had just come out of quarantine a few days before that and I had put her with the other ferrets for playtime. I began to watch her very closely and monitor her food and water intake. After a few hours I realized that she definitely was not eating on her own so I made up some mushy food for her and had to force feed her. Within 12 hours she became very dehydrated so I also started giving her water with a syringe. I decided last night that she was going to go to the vet first thing this morning so I stayed up most of the night with her. At about 4 am she actually drank alot of water and ate some mushy food from my hand on her own!! Thinking that she was getting better, I decided to hold off on the vet. When I woke up this morning and checked on her, she was even more lethargic and wouldn't eat or drink again. So I immediately rushed her to the vet where she is now. I refreshed my memory last night by reading about ECE (something I haven't done in a few months). All of the symptoms that Althea shows go along with ECE, so I'm almost positive that's what she has. If she hadn't been so thin in the first place, she probably wouldn't have gotten so sick. So here's my question...what do I do as a shelter now that I've been exposed to ECE?!?!? I am VERY upset over all of this and I feel it's my fault that Althea is sick. I should have known that my ferrets had been exposed....Would it be wrong for me to continue to run the shelter?? I would hate to have to close down after only 3 months. PLEASE!!! I need good advise in this matter and no flaming!! Just to let everyone know, Opal is still chewing my hands up everytime I play with her. I know it's going to take a long time for her to get over the biting and that's not a problem. I am no longer scruffing her when she bites and I'm going to continue using the gloves and hissing for a few weeks and see if that makes any progress with her. Keep your fingers, toes and tails crossed!! I will let everyone know if anything changes! And on the subject of deaf ferrets...I tested my little panda girl (Julie) the other day and I have confirmed that she is deaf! She is the only ferret that I have that will give me kisses as long as I will let her. She also enjoys biting my arms and sides every now and then but she always kisses afterwards to make up for it! :-) She's my little angel!! Dooks to all, Kim Sharp NRV Exotic Animal Rescue/Shelter http://www.geocities.com/nrvexotics/ Check out my items on Ebay!! All proceeds go straight to the shelter!! http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewListedItems&[log in to unmask] Or go to Igive and help raise money by clicking away!!! http://www.iGive.com/html/refer.cfm?memberid=64391&causeid=12842 [Posted in FML issue 3126]