There are important vaccines that your ferrets will need in order to sustain a long and healthy life. All ferrets need to be vaccinated for canine distemper and rabies once a year, even if they do not go outside.
Canine distemper is fatal to ferrets. Even people who have walked where an infected dog has urinated can carry the distemper virus to the ferret.
Rabies is rare, but is a fatal disease to humans. Its your legal responsibility to take every possible precaution to protect your pet and people who contact it.
There is one rabies vaccine for ferrets, Imrab3.
There are two vaccines available for ferrets. FDA Approved Furevax-D by Merial and NON-FDA Approved vaccine Galaxy-D by Schering-Plough
There is a chance that you’re ferret will have a sudden allergic reaction (anaphylactic) to the canine distemper vaccine. This tends to be higher than in dogs.
When you get a vaccine, make sure you remain at the vet’s office at least 30 minutes to an hour after the vaccination, so that you’re little guy can be monitored for a reaction. Any reaction should be considered life threatening and needs to be treated immediately. Make sure you talk to your veterinarian about being able to be reached within a 24 hour period in case of an emergency.
Once you get home, monitor your ferret for 24 hours, because of this you’ll need to schedule your ferret’s vaccination so that you’ll be able to do this, or have someone help you do this.
You should be looking for a sudden onset of vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, limpness and pale or bluish gums.
There is a treatment that can be given that can quickly reverse the reaction, but the longer you wait, the more difficult it is to reverse it.
Please do not feel that the the chance of a reaction is not worth your ferret having a vaccination. There is no treatment for distemper, distemper will be a painful death. Ferrets rarely die of an allergic reaction.
