indications that ferrets did NOT easily get another swine flu and may not be a good animal model for studying this disease: http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/04/ferreting-out-t.html Many thanks to Marylou for finding this! A FEW QUOTED SEGMENTS BEGIN: >a report last October of an outbreak of influenza in a ferret colony >has led to questions about whether this animal model can help sort out >a critical question about the current swine flu outbreak: What allows >this particular virus to transmit so well between humans? ... >No studies have ever tested swine flu viruses on ferrets... Iowa >State University reported ... that an outbreak of influenza in a >ferret colony on an Iowa farm infected 8% of about 1000... ... >"I was relieved," says Yoon, who worried that the ferrets, like swine, >might have been a "mixing vessel" of influenza viruses from different >species. > >the Iowa study is "very, very relevant," as it indicates that the >ferret "is not going to work for us as a model" to help tease out >how a swine H1N1 mutated to become transmissible between humans. END QUOTED SEGMENTS Sukie (not a vet) Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html http://www.miamiferret.org/ http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html [Posted in FML 6319]