Introduction and a few simple questions

[JaYdEd]

Hey all,
I'm new to the forum here, but not new to ball pythons or reptiles. I've been quietly reading the forums here for the past several weeks. I've had several snakes and a few bearded dragons in the past. Now that I've bought a house and my living situation is more permanent, I've decided to restart my snake collection. I did some "refresher" research, and built my own rack system which turned out pretty nice for the money. About 6 weeks ago, I purchases 2 pastel ball pythons from a very reputable breeder. I had ordered 1.1 pastel, but what I actually received was 0.2 pastel. Eh, whatever. Just have to buy another male I guess. The important thing is, they're both doing well.

Anyways, I have 2 very simple questions.

This time of year, all the little bugs and spiders are trying to get into the house to keep warm. I normally would bug bomb the basement to kill them off, but my snakes are in the basement. Would the pesticides be harmful for the snakes?
I can close off the snake room, but I doubt it would seal out all the chemical. Moving them out of the basement isn't really an option. Its a heck of a lot easier to maintain a good humidity down here, wife doesn't want them upstairs, melamine is ubber heavy, ect... the list goes one.

Second question, and I probably know the answer to this one already, just wanted some more opinions. I know you are to quarantine new snakes from your collection. I'm going to the reptile show in Omaha next month and plan on bringing home 2 or 4 more snakes. This would double or triple my current collection. I hope to strike a deal with one breeder and bring home 4 snakes purchased from 1 guy. Instead of 4 snakes purchased from 4 different breeders.
If I buy 4 snakes from one person, can all 4 be quarantined together, away from my current collection?
If I buy 4 snakes from 4 different people, do I need to separate each snake in its own room? I don't have that many different rooms in my basement LOL. How you guys do it when you acquire multiple snakes from different breeders?

Anyways, thanks for the read and thanks in advance for the replies. I'll try to post a pic of my rack system, and I'll get a few photos of my snakes in the next few days.

[OhhWatALoser]

You are supposed to leave the house yourself when you bug bomb, so snakes in the same place as the bomb would most likely kill them also. You could remove the snakes temporarily from the house (garage or shed with a temp source of heat perhaps?), bomb it, once the mist settles, clean up everything extremely well (I mean wash the rack, tubs, new beeding, ect.) then everything should be fine.

I have 2 collections, the established collection and the quarantine collection. The quarantine collection only becomes the establish collection after X amount of time. If I bring a new snake home that timer resets. When I bring a new snake home, I do put the quarantine collection at risk. It is up to you if you want to have more than one quarantine collection, personally I have not done that yet.

[dr del]

Hi,

Yes the chemicals would probably be harmful to the snakes - even with snake mite treatments you have to make sure not to treat the animal directly and a lot of insecticides are able to infuse into the water in the waterbowl with serious consequences.

You can quarantine all new arrivals in one area - it just increases the number of animals that might require treatment if a problem is found. Most people do this but remember you have to restart the quarantine clock on ALL animals with each new arrival.

I'd suggest moving the snakes upstairs for a few days and bug bombing the basement while they were out of it.

You will want the quarantine area to be as far away as you can for new arrivals so possibly building a QT rack in an upstairs room with totally separate equipment would be a good idea? Once it is run in and tested you could then move the snakes into that during the bug treatment. Also remember to finish any work with your existing collection before going near the QT area each day.

ETA: ^^^^ he described things way better than I did.

[JaYdEd]

You are supposed to leave the house yourself when you bug bomb, so snakes in the same place as the bomb would most likely kill them also. You could remove the snakes temporarily from the house (garage or shed with a temp source of heat perhaps?), bomb it, once the mist settles, clean up everything extremely well (I mean wash the rack, tubs, new beeding, ect.) then everything should be fine.

I have 2 collections, the established collection and the quarantine collection. The quarantine collection only becomes the establish collection after X amount of time. If I bring a new snake home that timer resets. When I bring a new snake home, I do put the quarantine collection at risk. It is up to you if you want to have more than one quarantine collection, personally I have not done that yet.

Yeah, seems pretty obvious and may have been a stupid question really. Bug bombs, bad idea.

I guess the only reason I asked about quarantine, is because if I find what I'm looking for at the show, my new quarantine collection would actually out number my established collection. And I've only had my collection for about 6 weeks, so technically they would be quarantined as well, if I had more snakes of course. I'm probably just over thinking it. I'll quarantine whatever I bring home in a separate part of the house and call it good.

Thanks for the info.

[ritche]

Bug spray the outside perimeter real good..should take care of them coming in. I only spray the outside of the house foundation and it seems to do the trick. .