You & Your Pet by Dr. Wise

Rhode Island Veterinary Medical Association 11 South Angell Street #347 · Providence, RI 02906 (877) 521-0103 (866) 277-0238 Toll-Free ·Fax

I am interested in buying a ferret for a pet, but am getting conflicting information about rabies vaccinations for them.  A friend said that you cannot vaccinate wild animals for rabies, but I read somewhere that the law says all ferrets must be immunized.   Can you settle the question?

Your friend is partially correct in that the government has established guidelines for captured wild animals and routine rabies vaccinations.   Vaccinating them is strongly discouraged since routine rabies vaccines for such animals has not been tested.  Your friend is confused, however, because the ferret is considered a domesticated pet and thus doesn't fit the wild animal category (as would mink, muskrats, skunks, etc.) 

As far as routine rabies vaccinations, we have come full circle with that subject.  Twenty years ago we had no federally approved vaccine for rabies in ferrets.  Since then a vaccine has become available through veterinarians.   It has been rigorously tested for safety and efficacy in ferrets.  In the past, we did not have much knowledge about naturally occurring rabies infections in ferrets.  It was not well understood how long it took for a ferret, once bitten by a rabid animal, to show signs of the disease.  At first it was thought that they had a six-month incubation period before succumbing to the viral infection.  For a person who is bitten by a ferret, that is too long to wait for treatment, so the offending ferret was euthanized and tested for the presence of the rabies virus.  New data shows that the incubation period for ferrets is quite similar to the period for dogs and cats.   They will die from the virus within 10 days, so if they survive beyond 10 days, they did not have the virus when they bit the person.  This shortening of the incubation period has prevented many ferrets from needless euthanasia, though in the past even an appropriately vaccinated ferret had to be destroyed and tested if it bit a person.   Now we can rely on the shortened incubation period to sort out ferrets that are not infected. 

Since the spring of 1998, it has become state law that all ferrets over 12 weeks of age must be vaccinated.  This vaccination must be given by a licensed veterinarian on an annual basis.

This information, prepared as a public service by the Rhode Island Veterinary Medical Association, answers problems Rhode Island veterinarians currently are seeing in their practices, as well as new developments in animal care.