I'll try harder. (The glare of a monitor still bothers my eye a bit so I am on in short bursts and having to sleep with breaks due to needing post-surg eye Pred drops in the middle of my sleep cycle. Tonight I finally can sleep without the time up in the middle for drops because today is my last day of those.) I have not been online much, but it sounds like elsewhere someone may have reviled a shelter for getting ECE. I hope that I understand right what is going on though I don't like it. **IF** my impression is correct I dislike that for two reasons: Firstly, I don't like people kicking others when they are down. Caring for dozens of sick ferrets at the same time classifies as being down in my book. Secondly, anyone who would blame a shelter when it gets ECE probably knows far too little about the disease. That lack of knowledge is downright SCARY. For that reason I am adding this note so that the info and links included can be carried elsewhere to save ferret lives: THIS FML POST MAY BE CARRIED TO OTHER FORA AS LONG AS IT IS UNALTERED, COMPLETE, AND PROPER CREDIT IS GIVEN TO THE FML AND THE AUTHOR (Sukie Crandall). I will carry it to the FHL myself. Offhand, i can think of three ways a shelter can be exposed without warning: 1. It can come in on shoes and even on some clothing with visitors or volunteers. 2. Kits can have asymptomatic infections and infect others. 3. For as long as eight months after symptoms have ended the infected ferrets can shed the virus and spread it. Yes, it also can come in with symptomatic ferrets, or with ones who have been infected but just have not broken with the illness yet, too. Sadly, the AFIP site is offline so many newbies have never read about ECE. I will include some ways to read newer resources on ECE below but to get the older writings (very clear on care info) by Dr. Bruce Williams you can use http://archive.org/ You will need to enter http://www.afip.org/ferrets but today I can not get it to work so can not take you through the steps. Ah, GOOD! I had the info here: http://ferrethealth.org/archive/FHL14295 so these should work for you directly but give the pages time to load: <http://web.archive.org/web/20000816025122/http://www.afip.org/ferrets/ECE/ECE.html> <http://web.archive.org/web/20000818082024/http://www.afip.org/ferrets/babyfood.html> The GI tract pathology section no longer exists but this overlaps with some of the data from then: <http://web.archive.org/web/20000818082141/http://www.afip.org/ferrets/Clin_Path/ClinPath.html> and you can get to other articles from Dr. William's AFIP website using this URL but again give time to load: http://web.archive.org/web/20000816025117/http://www.afip.org/ferrets/ The identifying tests for ECE (also called Ferret Enteric Coronavirus) and for the mutant of ECE which is Ferret Systemic Coronavirus (also sometimes called FIP-like coronavirus because it acts like dry FIP does in cats even though it is not FIP) are done ONLY by the Ferret Health Advancement lab at Michigan State. They are genetic tests. If I recall right the tests for ECE can involve just feces, but the one for the systemic disease needs tissue. http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ A number of other locations can do a GENERAL test that just says that some type of coronavirus is present. Some vets like to do the general test first to be sure that there is a coronavirus, and some just then say that it is ECE/FEC if the symptoms are right, or FSC/FIP-like if the symptoms match those. Here are some CURRENT URLs with correct info on these two coronavirus diseases: http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/Publications.php http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/Presentations/ http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/Diseases/Gastrointestinal.pdf http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21862468 http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/17/8/11-0115_article.htm http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20682435 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234644/?tool=pubmed (Notice above that they MISTAKENLY call it FIP rather than FIP-like even though there is the world of difference since it is NOT FIP. This is why the specific GENETIC viral IDs are so essential!) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20079778 http://vet.sagepub.com/content/45/2/236.long http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18263918 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18067916 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16617048 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16499943 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10953717 It is thought that ECE originally came to fur farm ferrets from fur farm mink and here is info on a new mutant of the mink disease: http://vir.sgmjournals.org/content/92/6/1369.long Sorry, but I think that I missed including the link to one of the two genetic tests on the systemic and enteric versions. [Posted in FML 7453]