Elizabeth (and others), If this is the same disease I am thinking of, there is some information on it. There was an extremely well written article about that disease in a back issue of Modern Ferret. Anyone who wants a copy, please email me with your snail mail and I will xerox it and mail you a copy. The disease will remain and thrive unless strict cleaning guidelines are met. From what I remember offhand, the woman whose ferrets got it had it from drinking fish tank water that had the bacteria in it due to the fish feces. She had to quarantine her ferrets, wipe everything they touched down with bleach EVERY time they were let out of the cage, and aggressively treat them with medicine at the same time. It took her weeks to get rid of it, because the slightest germ left from it would re-infect the ferrets. Which brings me to this: Point blank, ferrets should never ever drink tap water unless your home/apartment/what ever has a water filter system. After we read that article, Phil immediately went out and bought a small water filter system that cleans the water through reverse osmosis and deionization. We make water jugs (the big kind, like water fountain sized) at a time because he also uses it for our salt water tank. The water is kept in the refrigerator in an old milk jug with Weasel Water written on it! I wouldn't even trust bottled water on store shelves after all of the studies shown about how it's not a Hell of a lot safer. So, even if this wasn't the disease I was thinking of, you should still consider getting/using some sort of purified water for your babies. We carry jugs with us when we take the ferrets visiting, too, so they have their same water. I use it to take medicine for my sinus' and trust me, there is a HUGE difference between taking an Alka-Seltzer cold medicine with clean water and then with tap water. It even fizzes different. Hope this helped, Julie [Posted in FML issue 2511]