From:
Vicki Montgomery
Date: 2006-11-30 16:53:12 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Potting mix
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Hi John;
With all due respect, have you NEVER played in the mud or dirt or fall leaves? Ever climbed a tree, skinned a knee, caught a cold? Ever rolled down a grassy slope, jumped up, run to the top and rolled down again - with grass in your mouth and maybe some dirt too? Did ya ever fall off a Merry-Go-Round or off the roof of your parents house and break some skin or maybe a bone - jammed an ankle? Have ya played touch football (American Sport, but soccer will do) or thrown some hoops (Basketball) and gotten a bloody nose, run wildly across a field, climbed a tree? Built sand castles in the sand or mud castles in the mud? All of those are exposures allowing for the invasion by bacteria, viruses, protozoa, etc into the animal body and infect that body - But my goodness -- they are the stuff of a LIFE - along with the drudgery of going to work, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn or the joy of those activities - depending on your POV. How would you have liked it, knowing what you
do now, if your parents has said - You're never going outside again. You will get injured, sick, maybe killed. Go to your room, I'll bring you a puzzle with which to play and a treadmill upon which to walk.. you can also now have a stationary bike to replace that Schwinn you've got outside. It IS the same thing. Have you heard - dogs who work for a living are happier and healthier than lap dogs.
There are ferrety equavilents in the world outside of our stone and morter or wood and beam box worlds (houses) or parts of that outside world that can be brought in (soil, potting soil, sand, leaves, sticks and stones) that you would deny our ferrets because they MIGHT get a disease and die.. Might? - at what rate? Everytime they dig in the dirt, every tenth time? One in ten thousand?
OK I see that as your Right - to deny your ferrets the thrill of dirt diving, but I would Beg you to Reconsider!
Perhaps this is just my opinion but paraphrased from the movie "Steel Magnolias" - I'd rather have 10 minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special". I have taken a few risks in my life, but I do not consider walking outside a risk - I consider it a right - for all living creatures.
I consider allowing my non-human friends to co-exist with me inside my home a compassion I extend to them in exchange for their friendship and love - it's not their right - it's my house. If I choose to share - well bully for me and anyone who enjoys a benefit from that action, but the OUTSIDE belongs to us all - and holds wonders for the imagination and food for the soul.
Have I lost ya yet?
Our pets are not so very removed from their ancestry that they've lost their natural ability to ward off certain problems as well or better than we can - I don't care who says - "they live indoors so they can't take it as well" - I say - BULL -
As a species, and considering that evolutionary changes take a while, they haven't been imprisoned in our homes or kept as sterile prisoners long enough to have lost those abilities.
Unless they are kept in a hermetically sealed sterile cubicle, at a minumum, they are exposed to the air and all it offers. They also are exposed to hands and clothes that have touched outside surfaces and very likely brought home whatever microscopic fiend exists in the local geographic area, not to mention germs from sneezing on one's hands, coughing, picking one's nose, and scratching ones a** - and what is it -- ONE IN SIX people don't wash their hands after going to the bathroom! And where have those hands been? Visualize that and all the little germies that get shared as a result.
You DO wash your hands - GREAT.. did ya touch the water faucet knobs afterwards to turn them off? Did you touch the rubbish recepticle when you threw away that paper towel with which you dried your QUICKLY washed hands? Still with me? Please hang in there?
Did you grab the door's knob or handle to leave the restroom (water closet) in which you just passed a bit of soap and water over your hands? This you did - After someone who did NOT wash their hands and may have feces, urine and Lord knows what else on those hands first touched that knob or handle and deposited microscopic gifts for you to pick up and eventually take home? --- Home to your sheltered, shielded fuzzies who have NO natural immunities built up against such disease because they have never experienced even a non-pathogen, non-toxic germ of similiar structure because their environment has always been sterile?
It makes more sense to me to allow them to experience the world and slowly as they mature (same with us and our kids) develop antigens to the attackers of animal physical systems - germs attacking animal blood and organs.
The lucky ones, pets and kids alike, have crawled upon the very earth, grass and dirt, themselves to experience the joy of nature while their bodies react to defend against alien invaders - germs.
I do not suggest that we animals don't get sick or catch diseases, but, unless we live in that Bubble MD referred to, we ALL get sick.. it's part of life and with care and internal immunity we usually get over it and if healthy we develop more natural immunities - antigen - to win the next invasion more quickly or not get sick at all - But it's not so for the shielded couch or cage potato.. No exposure, no antigens, then when exposure does occur - illness... maybe death - They'll never be exposed you say? Really! They will never be around another person or animal, they won't ever sniff a breath of air that just might contain a few germs to take hold, multiply, infect, make ill and maybe kill. Is what I'm saying science fiction? I don't think so. Is It?
another part of life is death. We cry, tear out our hair, gnash our teeth in mourning of a lost loved one, me included, but eventually we all die -
Supposedly those of us who do not avoid nature and do not live a quasi-sterile life indoors have systems better able to help us overcome disease infections and live longer. Same is true for all animals...
I don't know about those statistics, but I do know.. I've had one Hell of a ride; I've been near death more than once with illness and injury and I wouldn't trade it (my life adventures) for anything. So you ask - Why would anyone want to have potting mix for ferrets to play in. Well barring Chemical and additives, I totally agree there -
It is so they can experience some of what life has to offer. So they can feel fresh air on their faces, cool earth beneath their feet, direct heat of the sun - well to an extent, let's don't parboil them in their own skins, and the ecstasy of squishing earth, rustling leaves, sniffing grass (the green stuff that makes lawns and golf courses pretty - not the stuff beatnicks and hippies popularized increasingly over the last 5 decades) etc....
John - it's for their physical joy and mental stimulation.
I suppose at this point we can agree to disagree. You certainly have not offered anything that shows a more than distant, occassional, or remote chance of a risk and risk is simply the stuff of which life is made.
I'm sorry that you had a ferret with Cryptoccosis and suspect that he got it from potting soil or any soil. I'm sorry ANYONE or their pets gets ANY disease. I am joyous when they recover, I am saddened when they die, but THAT'S LIFE. and I will NOT deprive my kids or my pets from experiencing LIFE. It's bad enough that I live where summer temperatures get so high that it's life threatening so I DO keep them inside. What excursions they experience, either actually via a journey outside or vicariously by me bringing a bit of the outside inside, at least allows for some joy and mental stimulation in an otherwise imprisoned life.
You have NOT put the cat among the pigeons nor the ferret among the potting soil. And I wish you would.
You have mentioned that you are sensitive because one of your ferrets caught something and it MAY have come from some soil. Where was that soil. What animals could have also visited that soil. What vermin and could any other animal, including vermin, have infected the soil before your ferret MAY have gotten there? Was the soil tested for infection? Give me facts.. Give me percentages and ratios.. How often do ferrets or pets get Cryptoccosis? What is the mortality rate? What is the full recovery rate? IF you can convince me that there is a real risk and not some hysterical reaction to an event that may or may not EVER be repeated, then I'll sound off the other way. Until then - Let's Get out of the House and PLAY! Vicki
jhnlewington <jhlewing@iinet.net.au> wrote:
Hi,
I am sorry to have put the cat amongst the pigeons or should i say
ferrets amid the potting mix! I just can't see why anyone would want
ot have potting mix for ferrets to play in. Come to think of it rice
is not an alternative.Just keep things simple.
Having had a ferret with Cryptoccosis and a suspect that he got into
the garden mulch store(similar to potting) i am rather sesitive to
this kind of exposure for ferrets. Granted my ferrets are in and out
living ferrets and in a hot climate.(Australia)
Potting mix or whatever can be a suspect material.Are the packet
details really 100% right? There is some concern to people nowdays
what as to what is put on the packet of cornflakes as details of
content let alone any other product! (Slight exageration!).
What about things for pet ferrets?
People have died from Legionnaire's Disease from potting mixture by
handling or inhalation.
Ferrets are diggers no doubt and of course one can't stop them. Their
nasal sense is probably as good as a dog and cat; they love strange
smells, and the nasal passage is a quick way not only to the lungs
but the brain.
It should be possible to get them more interested in 'play' in
plastic tube tunnels etc.
These questions are discussed in my new 2007 book Ferret
Husbandry,Medicine and Surgery,as Sukie Crandall
indicated. (in chapter 12)
Vicki Montgomery
Tricks and Treats Rescue
Greater Houston/Galveston Texas
713-472-6599
ferretfrenzy@yahoo.com or Tricksandtreatsrescue@yahoo.com
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/FerretCare/ - Join ferret care and share your care experiences
"Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace." ~ Dr. Albert Schweitzer
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