[Note: The purpose of my post is not to publically grieve, but to possibly help someone who might be having a simular problem with this rash of viral/flu stuff going around the country right now. I would like to know if anyone else has ever had a simular problem with their ferrets.] About three weeks ago I caught what I called a "super cold" (the very day after I had gotten my flue shot, argh!). I don't know if this was the current bad flu that's going around or just a random viral infection but it had all the symptoms of a bad cold - sinus drainage, sore throat, dried out/inflamed sinuses, coughing, sneezing, and a fairly high fever for an adult [I'm a 45 year old male] - 103F. Anyways, why I'm writing is that this viral infection, or whatever it was, was passed on to all nine of my ferrets. First, it wasn't serious. They were all sneezing and had some drainage. At this point there was nothing I could do about it I thought. There were all just going to have to go through it like I did. During the worst of my cold my left ear became somewhat inflamed and I could feel the makings of an earache. It went away, however, as my cold dissipated. I didn't think too much about it. Four or five days to maybe a week after my ferrets had shown their cold symptoms my wife noticed that Mocha was lethargic and really not feeling very well. All of the other ferrets during their bout with this virus had still been pretty active. My wife called our vet and made an appointment for the next day. My wife then went to her own doctor's appointment. When she got back she noticed that Mocha was barely moving and had a discharge from her ear. She immediately rushed Mocha to Petroglyph (our emergency vet hospital). On the way she thought she had lost her a couple times. When she got to Petroglyph the vet immediately rushed Mocha back and started to work on her, but it was too late. Mocha had passed. She had neuro symptoms at the vet and on the trip there. Our vet said the drainage from the ear was pus and blood. The vet thought that maybe Mocha had gotten into some toxin. We went nuts trying to figure out what she might have gotten into. The only thing we could come up with was the Mr. Clean my wife used to clean their cages. The vet thought that maybe Mocha had found a drop in the cage possibly. The vet went through her list of chemicals and found out that Mr. Clean contains the same toxin as antifreeze (Naturally, at this point we decided to throw out all our cleaners, angry at ourselves). My wife then came home to find Taz and Jaws having the same symptoms, including dizziness. They both had a "head tilt". Well, as you can imagine, we just went nuts. My wife had been giving me updates at work about what was going on with Mocha and the other ones. I got someone to cover for me at work and I rushed to Petroglyph. At this point my wife and I still had no real clue as to what was happening or why and we were beside ourselves. Our vet still thought at that point that it was possibly a toxin. Blood work was done on Jaws. He had a BUN, creatinine, and phosphorus level check. All of this showed normal, ruling out the toxin theory. The vet couldn't get blood from Taz because his pressure was low. Taz and Jaws went into support therapy. They got IV antibiotics, steroids, and fluids overnight. The next morning they were faring better, although neither one had any sense of balance. They still had severe "head tilts". The vet prescribed Baytril (an antibiotic) and later that afternoon they were allowed to come home. [On a side note, we weren't really happy with the knowledge of treatment the vet had given our ferrets, although I think she acted to the capacity of her knowledge. When it comes to vets I don't care about touchy feely crap - I want someone who has the experience, logic, and knowledge to do the job. It's a hard thing to deal with, especially in an emergency situation. You just have to do the very best you know how to do.] The next morning we took every one of our 8 ferrets to see a vet we really trusted (An English vet, who raised and trained ferrets as a kid in England. He was a human doc at one point, but decided that it was too political and that if he wanted to practice medicine as he knew best he would have to become a vetrinarian and practice on animals. Much more rewarding, if you ask me). He took a good long look at our remaining 8 and told us that he thought that this was some kind of viral outbreak. What had happened to Mocha, Taz, and Jaws was a secondary bacterial ear infection that had gotten out of control. A few days later Sid (our youngest) came down with the same ear infection, including the dizziness and "head tilt". Sid had a temp of 103F. Our vet put him on the same Baytril and gave him a sub-Q injection of a secondary antibiotic (Ampicillin). He then instructed us to start an aspirin therapy for three days an an anti-pyretic to bring down the fever, which worked like a charm. All three of my sick guys are now eating on their own and doing well, except for the loss of balance. Our vet said this might take some time to go away, possibly 7-10 days or longer. We stopped giving Sid aspirin yesterday afternoon to see if the fever remained. At 1pm to day we'll take his temp (not a fun thing to do...) to see if it's normal. I'm pretty sure it is, as Sid was running around the house acting like a ferret early this morning. Jaws and Taz are doing OK, except for the loss of balance, and even that's getting somewhat better. It would be comical if I had the ability to see it that way, but at the present time I don't :( Maybe later, when this is all over... We were relieved and distressed by our three guys getting through this so far - relieved that these three are doing better, but distressed that we didn't catch what was going on with Mocha. Mocha was one of our best and brightest. She was our climber. She liked to climb up my leg when I was at my computer, just to see what was going on. My wife and I will miss her very much. We just wish we had known what we were dealing with. Anyways, things are looking up for the rest of our guys. That helps to take the edge off our loss. Hopefully this might help some other ferrets who might go through this same kind of ordeal. I just wanted to pass this on so we could compare notes. I would be interested in what Dr. Williams thinks about this. At this point all we know is that our guys had gotten some kind of viral infection. Our vet doesn't think it was flu. He said that he hasn't seen a true case of flu in ferrets in over 15 years, but he can't totally rule it out. I would really like to know more about this, if possible. Roary and Yvonne Albuquerque, New Mexico [Posted in FML issue 4355]