From:
Motor City Ferrets
Date: 2008-04-27 16:20:38 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Re: Case of Canine Distemper in Ferret
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Well that's very interesting. If memory serves, the ferret in GR had been at the shop for 3-4 weeks. I'm not sure when the shop said she became noticeably sick...? I didn't learn much about the GR ferret and it sounded like the people involved were not keen to discuss the situation with others, but I'm going to copy Dr. Sue's post and mention to the gal who ended up with the GR ferret.
I hadn't heard that A Pets was closed down; in fact, I thought the ferret in the Grand Rapids area had come through A Pets. When did A Pets close, do you know?
Where was the third ferret geographically (the one in Chicago from Dr. Sue and the one in Grand Rapids being #1 & #2)?
And since we've dealt with a coccidia outbreak and know devastating it is, was the kit you mentioned indeed positive for coccidia as well?
And I would really appreciate the vets chiming in here with information on the incubation period for ferrets. I always thought it was rather fast, say 2 weeks or so...but I've read it can be a much longer time frame?
We RARELY see young ferrets under 6 months turned in to the Shelter, but it's always a possibility. Plus, many ferret friends like to visit the babies in the pet shops when they stop in to shop. I would still think that if there was distemper at Marshall Farms then we'd be hearing about all kinds of sick kits, so I would still suspect that kits would instead pick up distemper at a broker stop on their way to the pet shop. But who knows?
I certainly think it's high time to find out. A ferret with distemper in a shop is going to die, threaten all the other ferrets in that batch, as well as future batches (the GR ferret was seen by a vet who diagnosed pneumonia for pete's sake)...and every dog that comes in unvaccinated. Sure, we hope that dogs have had their proper shots, but that's not always the case. And many people do not vaccinate their ferrets after the ferret had a serious reaction one year. Scary stuff...
Nanci
Motor City Ferrets
www.motorcityferrets.org
[Moderator's Note: multiple locations in one geographical area, but not
others makes a person wonder about two possible sites of exposure
pretty hard:
1. distribution center
2. transportation hub or even the transport itself
Terrible, terrible illness and I am so sorry people are encountering this.]
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