Okay, like what's up with dat?! Huh? I spoke to my dad who lives in Jersey last night and he said he heard the same exact thing on the news ... to the very last word. So that tells me that the news sooooooomewhere, is lumping ferrets in with rodents first off. Second off, I had not heard of this on the news about solmin .. som .. ucky germs that are in the midst of an outbreak in ferrets. Now, it's a well known fact that you must be a bit careful around some reptiles. But mammals? Someone clear this up. Either there is misinformation, or a few odd accounts have been severely overblown. ::Putting on leathery wattles:: Look at me! I'm the Sukie Creature! The Crandall! Okay so what would the Crandall do? Lets look up some of this stuff here..... ::licking my thumb, turning the pages, etc :: Okay, check it out: http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/105/107847.htm I don't see ferrets included here though. Just a few scattered cases in children who might have caught it from rodents in the NE areas. But that's it. I'm still not convinced, I mean solmon... siiiigh, som it ... you know, the yucky germs are everywhere anyway actually. Humans pick it up quite easily in fact and you can even get it from a secondary source. Seems to me it would be a bit difficult, if not impossible to pin point a source in most cases when it's from a secondary source (especially from pets). I googled this subject and really nothing came up. A couple sights that said that ferrets and humans as well can pick up solmy ... sigh. But how likely is that with ferrets? How likely would transmission be to us if they can pick it up? Is there really an outbreak right now with rodents and ferrets right now? I didn't really see anything. Either way the young should wash hands after handling rodents. But that's something we should all practice when handling all animals anyway. Including spouses! Wolfy http://wolfysluv.jacksnet.com [Posted in FML issue 4871]