Hi, John, I have been in touch with multiple vets over a matter of weeks and asked if this disease has been seen in ferrets, and so far none know of any cases. That doesn't mean that it can't happen or that it might not mutate further allowing it to happen, but so far it hasn't so maybe no ferrets will ever get it. This is an equine (horse) influenza type which mutated and was first seen in racing dogs that lived in close proximity to horses. One of the major routes for novel diseases for which animals have no ready antibodies is mutation of a disease normally found in other animals. That is why an easily mutating bird influenza scares epidemiologists, of course. Did you know that it is thought that one reason that there was more exchange of diseases to Native Americans instead of the other way around during the incursions by Europeans is because Europeans lived in close association with so many animals so had more disease exposures? (It didn't help that when the major European incursions on the east coast or North America occurred was right after a major native disease outbreak had killed the majority of Native Americans from much of the coast according to some new research -- which is like the disease and drought-famine that make much of Africa vulnerable just before colonization.) Anyway, according the talk of Corrie Brown at this year's Western Veterinary Conference among humans -- of about 1,400 known infectious diseases -- about 60% are zoonotics (from other species). There is no reason to assume that other species would not encounter similar situations with diseases we or other species could pass in mutated form to them. So, ferrets might, or might at a future time with a mutated influenza version, be able to get this alteration of equine influenza, but right now I have been unable to find any known cases. (I HAVE found that there are a lot of people insisting that their dogs have this when they don't, though. That is no great surprise; you would be amazed how many people blamed even stress runs on ECE when that was in the news more, though having almost lost 3 -- one of whom had her preexisting disease worsen so greatly that her life was shortened, and one of whom took kidney damage due to dehydration despite vet and home rehydration daily, I can't figure out why anyone would ever want to claim to be encountering that when not doing so. Nowadays there are a lot of unproven and some clearly false claims of ferrets with DIM (where even their vets say they just have a a bit of another infection), and having cared for Chiclet for 6 weeks with that and gone through all that heartbreak I even more can not figure out why anyone would want to claim that disease without having done everything to make sure it really is that and having looked careful for other possible causes so that most effective treatment can be used. There are some possible cases that lack pathology so no one knows, but if you want to be startled sometime read up in reputable sources what that disease is like and then read some of the reports that don't fit in pretty much any way or share only one or two symptoms which can have a whole range of causes. You will be startled. BTW, because Dr. Katrina Ramsell recently gave her talk on DIM and which treatments have been tried and failed -- all of them on proven cases though some of the very latest are doing better now so that lends hope of progress -- at the AFA vet conference there will be an upcoming update to the public notice about this disease. Next Summer the cooperative pathology work on this disease by Doctors Matti Kiupel (Michigan State) and Mike Garner (Zoopath) will be one talk at the IFC Symposium in Canada. Doctors Ramsell, Garner, and Kiupel are in regular contact with each other on this disease, and the IFC provided a grant last year to help in this disease investigation.) -- Sukie (not a vet) Ferret Health List co-moderator http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth FHL Archives fan http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ replacing http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org International Ferret Congress advisor http://www.ferretcongress.org [Posted in FML issue 5034]