From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2005-05-31 20:13:50 UTC
Subject: RE: Bumps on the face
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <4688769.1117570430717.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
Kimi if the NUMBERS of the parasites is increasing you are NOT seeing ticks. Ticks have a long and slow life cycle. (The reason that the very earliest adult instars - size stage - of deer ticks are the ones who pass along Lyme Disease is because juvenile ticks get it from the reservoir for the disease which is ground nesting rodents, and then once they begin their adult life they move out onto a range of hosts for their blood sucking which includes over 30 types of wildlfe (including deer) and us domesticated beings.) So, basically if it is ticks then the numbers should NOT be increasing, esp not rapidly unless they are currently getting in somewhere.
You also mentioned white things stuck in fur. Now, there are a range of possible parasites, but given that description and given that it sounds like the population of parasites is increasing in number I am inclined to think that you are dealing with LICE. Lice attach eggs to the fur, and the dark adults themselves don't tend to move around as much as fleas (though they do some as a certain poem attests), and the louse life cycle is not terribly long. FLEAS are also a possibility: short life cycles, reproduction, eggs in fur...
(Mites are smaller, and chiggers tend to burrow in.)
I am looking for places with basic info and hopefully some photos for you
http://cybersleuth-kids.com/sleuth/Science/Animals/Insects/Fleas_and_Lice/
http://www.yourfamilyshealth.com/family_health/pets/fleas/
BTW, the lice that dogs and cats get are not the same ones humans get, and I suspect that is the same for ferrets.
Here is a human body louse:
http://www.ent.iastate.edu/imagegal/phthiraptera/pediculus-humanus.html
and here is another type of louse:
http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/lice.html
Here are tick images:
http://www.ent.iastate.edu/imagegal/ticks/