Steve and I are sorry that you are still having losses. Has anything come back, yet, from the pathologist? What is being seen in the necropsies? Those (especially the pathology done from the necropises since that will allow for extensive tissue sampling that otherwise would be impossible) are where you will have your best chance of an answer, of course. Necropsies and pathology are the most life-saving thing a person can have done in your type of home situation. I seem to recall that you said that you wanted cedar info even though you figured it might be from a pesticide if the pathology supports that. You can find some cedar info at: http://www.trifl.org/cedar.html I checked in the _Handbook or Poisoning_ (an OLD book) for you and the symptoms of pyrethrin poisoning (IN HUMANS) which that text lists are skin sensitivity, and convulsions or coma. It does not have checks for GI or respiratory irritation, liver or kidney damage, or blood pressure drops. Neither the livestock poisoning book nor one with picies list this particular mum or its components. From _Physicans' Desk Reference of Herbal Medicine_ (newest version -- the most reliable source I included in my checking, again from humans but maybe there's something useful here): "No health hazards or side effects ... with the proper administration of designated Therapeutic dosages ... doses up to 2 g ... are non-toxic" OVERDOSE: "Headache, ringing in the ears, nausea, parathesias, respiratory disturbances and other neurotoxic symptoms" For treatment they have: " gastric lavage with burgundy-colored potassium permanganate solution and installation of activated charcoal ... possible cases of acidosis with sodium bicarbonate infusions ... in shock plasma volume expanders should be infused ... monitoring of kidney function ... intubation and oxygen respiration may be necessary" You will want to discuss such procedures with your vet if that is the likely cause from a medical standpoint. I am not sanguine about your dropping of the infectious disease possibility unless there is strong veterinary proof that this isn't the cause of the deaths, and I urge you to PLEASE continue to hold off from interacting with any other ferrets until it's sure that whatever is causing this is NOT infectious; no one (including you) wants an epidemic if it's anything infectious. You also need to know this for sure even if all of them pass away since some diseases remain in an area for extended periods of time. I keep hoping for your stories to stop, since each comes with a death. Maybe when the answer is found and the deaths stopped you can take a breather and then write write survivors' pieces. [Posted in FML issue 2911]