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

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?

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