Another person or I will have to get some free time to see if Bartonella has ever been confirmed in ferrets, but this is interesting in term of which had it and which did not since it MIGHT indicate a better resistance in members of genus Mustela: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22841404 Begin quote Vet Microbiol. 2012 Jul 17. [Epub ahead of print] Isolation and phylogenetic analysis of Bartonella species from wild carnivores of the suborder Caniformia in Japan. Sato S, Kabeya H, Miura T, Suzuki K, Bai Y, Kosoy M, Sentsui H, Kariwa H, Maruyama S. Source Laboratory of Veterinary Public Health, Department of Veterinary Medicine, College of Bioresource Sciences, Nihon University, 1866 Kameino, Fujisawa, Kanagawa 252-0880, Japan. Abstract The prevalence of Bartonella species was investigated among wild carnivores of the suborder Caniformia, including 15 Japanese badgers (Meles anakuma), 8 Japanese martens (Martes melampus), 2 Japanese weasels (Mustela itatsi), 1 Siberian weasel (Mustela sibirica), 171 raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides), and 977 raccoons (Procyon lotor) in Japan. Bartonella bacteria were isolated from one Japanese badger (6.7%) and from one Japanese marten (12.5%); however, no Bartonella species was found in other representatives of Caniformia. Phylogenetic analysis was based on concatenated sequences of six housekeeping genes (16S rRNA, ftsZ, gltA, groEL, ribC, and rpoB) and sequence of the 16S-23S internal transcribed spacer region. The sequence analysis indicated that the isolate derived from the Japanese badger (strain JB-15) can represent a novel Bartonella species and the isolate from the Japanese marten (strain JM-1) was closely related to Bartonella washoensis. This is the first report on isolation of Bartonella from badger and marten. Copyright (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. PMID: 22841404 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] End quote Sukie (not a vet) Ferrets make the world a game. Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ 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 all ferret topics: http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html "All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow." (2010, Steve Crandall) On change for its own sake: "You can go really fast if you just jump off the cliff." (2010, Steve Crandall) [Posted in FML 7508]