From:
"ferretgm"
Date: 2011-07-21 12:43:05 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] ADV in the midwest
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
I've owned ferrets for 18 years. Most of that time, we lived in the Kansas City area, although in 2009 we moved to the greater Chicago area. In late 2007, I purchased a little female Path Valley ferret from a local pet store, at about 12 weeks old. At the time I had a total of 4 ferrets.
The female Path Valley carried ECE, and after a 2-month battle, my oldest ferret had to be put down, which left me with 3 total.
All 3 of the remaining ferrets contracted ADV shortly thereafter. Around this time, they were boarded at a local shelter occasionally, but otherwise only went to their vet's office. I purchased ferret toys and custom bedding from sellers on ebay, which also might have been the source. Of course, the little female might have carried it from the breeder - there's no way to know.
The little female's symptoms were primarily lethargy and some wasting. She had an exploratory surgery that showed massive enlargement of the abdominal lymph nodes. We treated with pred, and she had perhaps another 6 months before the lymph nodes were simply so massive that she could no longer eat and basically had to urinate constantly because they were pressing on her bladder. She was about 2 1/2 when the symptoms started, and the very excellent pathology analysis showed clearly that it was not lymphoma, so the vet and I are pretty certain that it was actually the ADV that caused the enlargement.
The older male developed bizarre neurological symptoms: altered gait, strange ways of standing, a weird hacking cough, and then wasting. He passed at home. The little female also had this weird hacking cough near the end.
My last male, Ripper, did not appear to have symptoms until about 12 weeks ago, when all his lymph nodes enlarged. Like the little female, it was primarily the gut nodes that were so big; he couldn't eat because they were compressing his stomach. Once we put him on pred, they dropped down, and he was able to continue on for a while, but unfortunately, they have continued to enlarge, and have swollen tremendously in the past 48 hours. He is now close to 6 pounds in weight, and for example the underarm lymph nodes are so big this morning that it looks like he has enormous pectoral muscles. I am taking him in to be euthanized in an hour.
Frankly, even aside from the problem of contagion of the Aleutian's, I will never have ferrets again. They are lovely, affectionate, funny, adorable, precious animals, but something about the way we raise them in the US is terrible for their health. I don't know what it is, or what to do about it - believe me, I have tried everything anyone can think of - but I'm not doing it any more. The Aleutian's is just the last straw.
All of this talk about how ADV is a "maybe" disease (as in maybe they'll get sick, maybe they won't, so maybe it's no big deal) is idiocy. Someone killed my ferrets because they didn't test, or because they didn't stop interacting with the community once they knew. If people don't start testing and euthanizing, or at the very least completely isolating, then in five or ten years, we're not going to need shelters because ferrets will only live to be 2 or 3 years old due to ADV. Good luck, people. You're going to need it.
It's been an interesting journey. Would I do it again? Probably not; the joy-to-pain ratio is looking pretty unbalanced this morning. Hope yours comes out better than mine did.
Melissa
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