Message Number: YG2455 | New FHL Archives Search
From: bill and diane killian
Date: 2001-04-10 21:07:00 UTC
Subject: Re: [Ferret-Health-list] ECE

----- Original Message -----
From: "Edward Lipinski" <elipinski@j...>
>
> Your posting on ECE not acting like a highly transmissable 'virus' is
> certainly a wake-up call to all of us who have blankly accepted the
> supposition that the infective agent is a transmissable 'virus', or is
> indeed a 'virus'.

ECE is caused by a virus. There are somethings we do know. That is one of
them. Ther of course can be other things involved that make ferrets more or
less suceptible to any particular virus.

> As you may or may not know, since I've not addressed this 'viral theory'
> to any investigation myself, I am quite flabbergasted and concerned about
> the ECE problem here at F.E.R.R.E.T.S. NW Foundation in the sense that
> ECE has never been seen here. And this goes all the way back to 1981
> when I first started keeping records of our activities here at our
> shelter and husbandry.

Since ECE was not a known disease in 1981 you need only concern yourself
with the less than ten years it has been known. NO ferret in my possession
has ever gotten ill from ECE, though two were already ill before I brought
them home.

> As far as I may logically claim and as simply as possible, the one
> practice here that is different from all other ferretariums world wide,

Well since a common element between your ferretry and ours is that we have
not had ECE infect our animals (i have no idea what a ferretarium would be -
ferrets in terrarium?) If you choose to look at what has caused your luck
you shouldn;t dwell on how your ferretry differs from ours.

> is that I prepare my own home-made ferret food, a cooked soup combination
> of various meats and many different veggies, fruits, yogurt, garlic,
> onions, brewer's yeast and a whole host of other ingredients, including
> but not limited to the left-overs from yesterday's supper.

If you choose to ignore those that are trying to teach you what they have
learned through painstaking research that is your perogative. But you might
choose not to express your hypotheses as equivalent to their extended
research.

> Most often as my pillow cradles my head and before sleep kills my
> consciousness, I lie there thinking on this peculiar phenomenon of just
> how nutrition can possibly influence the incidence of ECE.

If your ferretry was the only one that avoided the ravages of ECE you might
have something. But yours is far far from the only one.

> I repeatedly ask myself, what am I doing that keeps ECE a non-event here
> in soggy Seattle?

You really should consider the possibility of pure luck.

> If an identified coronavirus, why is there no test available to determine
the presence of the infective agent prior
> to the horrible symptoms typical of its presence?

Would you care to pay the maybe tens of thousands of dollars it would take
to create such a test? So far no one else has.

You could really leave your mark by such a guesture.

> And yet another querry, why is there no effective preventative treatment
after the
> enteritis is first observed?

There aren't yet many truly good anti-virals, especially in veterinary
medicine though it is changing.

Lots and lots of money was spent on HIV before good post infection
treatments were developed.

> Hopefully in the years that follow ferret owners will rely more on making
> their own ferret food and rely less and less on the commercial kibble
> alone.

With (almost Dr.) Bob Church and Dr. Tom Willard as two learned folks on
opposite sides of that spectrum there is something worth considering.

You probably could learn a lot from both of them.

> Then again perhaps seekers of truth will uncover the mystery that
> is typified by ECE and its subtle relationship to diet, and during this
> search time, maybe the incidence of ECE may be reduced dramatically.

Really there is little mystery left in ECE. At least certainly not on the
order of what you seem to think.

> I hereby claim to be the worlds best 'Unauthority' and have a reluctance
> to follow that which is not understandable in simple terms.

Not sure how to react to that. There are quite a few things that can not be
explained in simple terms. Or at least simple to all people. I find the
type of programming I do fairly easy or example but some people just put up
their hands and shriek. It does seem to depend upon ones general and
specialized education on whether terms are simple or not.

> Who is it who sings, 'It is a gift to be simple?' - the Quakers?

I thought that was the Shakers...