Quarantine...how?

[Wrath]

Hello. Can anyone tell me how I am supposed to quarantine my new BP? I am going to keep her in my bedroom with my Rosy's habitat and I want to be sure to do this right. I also want to switch their tanks, but i don't know how that will work w/ the quarantine.

Grant, I read that you have a quaranting procedure...can you advise? All input is greatly appreciated!

[Bryan Self]

The best thing for quarantine in is a sweater or shoe box. Put heat tape under it with a thermostat and paper towels for substrate. You want to keep things as simple as possible. It minimizes things that can go wrong. After 3-6 months it should be safe to put into your collection. You also should have it in a different room. Wash your hands between handling old and new.
Good Luck.

[Linds]

Well, when quarantining animals you *should* have a separate room, but unfortunately this isn't always possible so you jsut have to compensate to the best of your abilities. Rules to live by when quarantining inthe same room:

1- keep animals as distanced in the room as possible
2- use papertowel (or newspaper) substrate so that it is easily changed and the snakes health can be monitored easily (bowel movements, mites, etc)
3- disinfect your hands between handling each animal (soap is ineffective as far as msot germs go, soap is for dirt; alcohol is for germs - i reccomend using a high potency alcohol spray on your hands and forearms followed by washing the antibacterial soap)
4- good idea to pretreat for mites, especially in these situations since mites carry disease and spread very quicky (up to 15 feet per day), this is not a must, but i would defintiely recommend it, because likely by the time you notice if it is a small infecstaion, it will probably be too late and have spread to your more established animals
5- never share any of the same equipment/supplies between animals such as sponges, dishes, etc.


I think I covered the basics, if I missed anything I will add to it ;)

[reverendsterlin]

everything sounds right to me. One extra little trick is to always handle/feed/clean the pets you have had, before doing the same with the one in quarantine, just an extra little safety measure

[Wrath]

But I wanted to switch tanks (new snake in old tank, and vice versa). Can I disenfect and clean both tanks and do the switch?

Or do I have to wait until after the quarantine?

And how long does this quarantine usually last?

[reverendsterlin]

as long as the snakes never come close to each other and everything is throughly cleaned shoulddn't be a problem swapping tanks. a cb I would do for 3 months, an import maybe up to 6 months