Message Number: SG14187 | New FHL Archives Search
From: Kimi_wood@hotmail.com
Date: 2005-06-02 05:25:06 UTC
Subject: RE: I found a ferret & I need help!
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <2555880.1117689906245.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>

These ticks had my vet's full attention lol He said they were for sure a type of tick, but nothing he has seen or heard of before! I will take a few pictures tomorrow morning to let you know what they look like and give you more insight as to what I have on my guys (Im not sure if what i have, is what this newly found ferret has, but they sound the same!)
Im from Ontario Canada. One morning when we woke up there was one or two black ticks who had clearly had a full meal on the girl...and within a few hours both girls had them all around the face area...we picked a few off and they seemed to slow down in reproducing right away..but their were clearly becoming more and more as fast as we could pull some off. They were full of blood, but their back were hard, althrough popped fairly easily (thats hard to explain, but the backs were almost a shell, even through pulling them off seemed to pop just about every other one we tried, which is why i stopped messing with them and took the ferts right to the vet!

I'll be sure to take pictures in the morning, providing the meds they were given today didnt make them all fall off by then

Author wrote:
> Author wrote:
> > Im having the same problem, except it's on all 6 ferrets! Go to the post "bumps" a
> > couple threads down and there is a lot of info on what to do!
> I would LOVE to have a solid ID (genus and species) of the parasite both of you are seeing. Despite much searching I have not found any ticks with as short a life cycle as described, none which lay eggs in fur, none which are not multi-host (most have three hosts at different parts of the life cycle). So, if these are ticks they are incredibly unusual ones.
> Where are each of you located?
> To whom are specimens being sent for ID? (Given the FHL rules, please, send that info privately.)
> There are also very ferret-specific reasons to ask. If these are lice instead of ticks I would love to know what is being used effectively on lice in ferrets. If they are an unusual tick then a whole barrel of questions arises.