Links to listings of vets: http://www.ferretcongress.org In the Critical References >hi i know ferrets can catch colds from humans but can they catch other >things like Tuberculosis and other bacterium's Ferrets do not get human colds (rhinoviruses) but they do get influenza and they do catch some of our bacterial sinus infections, both of which people often mistake for colds if they are mild enough. There are a large number of diseases which are documented in ferrets that one would not normally think of them in relation to. The reason is because they have been used as lab animals in disease studies so there is pretty decent knowledge of a range of things they get and a range of things they don't get. One text that goes into these zoonoses rather thoroughly is James Fox's _Biology and Diseases of the Ferret, second edition_ from 1998, though all of the vet texts carry some mention. Both ferrets and humans can get the bovine form of tuberculosis, for example, and you will find that in the assorted references. Off hand, I can't recall about the other strains, but according to something I have handy right now: >The bovine form, BTW, has almost disappeared in U.S. ferrets due to the >feeding of pelleted foods rather than raw animal parts, and due to raw >milk not typically being available according to Fox's _Biology and >Diseases of the Ferret_. Euthanasia is the recommended action when ferrets contract that disease. About the avian form the chapter reads: "Although M. avium is not a disease reportable to public health officials, its presence may present a zoonotic risk, particularly to immunocompromised humans. If other ferrets have been exposed, they should be tuberculin-tested (which may be helpful), or other diagnostic tests should be performed to ascertain their disease status. Personnel at risk should also be screened with appropriate tuberculin tests." Also look up zoonotic or zoonosis in http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org and other resources. I do not have time to review these right now, but on a search of the word "zoonotic" in Google I find: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasiticpathways/animals.htm http://research.ucsb.edu/connect/acc/policy.html http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/zoo/ http://www.zoonotic-diseases.com/ http://www.vetmed.wisc.edu/pbs/zoonoses/ (with a number of links I won't include to avoid repetition) and more... As you will notice ferrets are not alone in having some diseases humans can share or in sharing some the same pathways we have for acquiring disease (such as the food one), but I suspect that you already well knew this; still it does help to emphasis that sometimes in relation to shared concerns like disease, kit teething and mouth manners, etc. [Posted in FML issue 4136]