Question About Quarantine

[Crawly's Mom]

Hey guys! So as many of you know... i completed my rack yesterday. I had a couple questions about quarantine and how I should proceed from here. Currently I have five balls, but had no real system for quarantining them. I have Crawly on one side of the kitchen, Parker is on the other side of the kitchen. I have had them for about three months now. Bonnie and Clyde are together in my bedroom, because they came together. I have had them about two months. Sally is in the living room across the house and I have had her for three weeks.

Do people usually have a quarantine room where all their new animals are kept? If so is it silly to keep them apart instead of putting them all together in the rack now, since they are all still technically in the quarantine phase? Should I continue to keep them in different places within my house until they are done being quarantined? I haven't seen any issues with Crawly, Parker, Bonnie, or Clyde. Sally I am still keeping an eye on for that mystery whistle, but she hasn't done it again since the two times she did it yesterday.

I am also planning on getting a couple more snakes next week at the show... so how do I handle them for quarantining? Help please... any advise would be awesome.

[Kinra]

My primary rack is in my living room and my QT rack is in my spare room. I QT for 60-90 days and then I will move them into my primary rack (or I would if it wasn't full ). In your case I would say it's probably fine to put Crawly, Parker, Bonnie and Clyde in the same rack, but Sally should still be QT. If you have reason to believe she may be sick, I would QT your new additions away from her and your rack.

[Crawly's Mom]

Okie doke. I wil do that then. I will put the four I have had the longest in the rack, then set up the area I have Bonnie and Clyde in now as my designated Quarantine area lol. Its a little alcove right by my bedroom with a cupboard and a four foot countertop, which is where they are tucked away at current lol.

[Maddumpling]

there is no point in qt racks in my opinion. its still the same thing as harming your other snake collection because if one snake has some kinda sickness or mites in that qt rack then it can spread to your other snakes in that rack, possibly ruining your whole investment. If you have a qt rack, its really not a qt rack. In qt, you are trying to get your new snake not give anything to your other snakes.

[dr del]

Hi,

Actually you are trying to stop new additions introducing problems to your healthy established collection.

QT racks are fine as long as you remember each new animal introduced to it resets the quarantine clock for all animals in QT.


dr del

[kitedemon]

Quarantine is as much a 'state of mind' as physical. The separation could be a foot or so and still work as long as the mental state is firm. (not ideal but... remember exoparasites move so the quarantine needs to have some isolation system too especially if close to each other) The mental state is NO cross contamination. Separate tools, wash snake a stuff, disinfect snake a tools put them away, disinfect the work space, clean hands sanitize hands. Start for snake two. ideally nothing should be used for a quarantine snake that is used in the rest of the collection. If this is not possible it needs to be absolutely cleaned between remembering most viruses are tough to kill and it takes time for most disinfectants to work and not all do. Some of the most frightening and scary diseases of royals are viral (IBD...) so be diligent.

[mattchibi]

What's a temporary solution if you only have one rack for now? I'm getting an RBI rack soon and was planning on putting my lesser hatchling in there right away.. Should I be putting her in qt first? No other snakes will be in the rack at the time.

Also if I get any new hatchlings in the future, can I just setup a small tub system with uth and thermostat to be my "qt" zone for 60-90 days?

[Ch^10]

What's a temporary solution if you only have one rack for now? I'm getting an RBI rack soon and was planning on putting my lesser hatchling in there right away.. Should I be putting her in qt first? No other snakes will be in the rack at the time.

Also if I get any new hatchlings in the future, can I just setup a small tub system with uth and thermostat to be my "qt" zone for 60-90 days?

I feel that I just posted the exact response in another thread; to the OP, there are many threads on QT.

@ mattchibi: A tub with UTH and a t-stat located in a different room than your main collection should suffice. This can be a permanent solution for QT (IMO).

[Crawly's Mom]

Alright so now I have an additional question to add to this. Originally I had intended to put Crawly, Parker, Bonnie, and Clyde into the rack as none of them had shown any signs of any sickness in the last few months that I have had them, however, Crawly just regurgitated on Wednesday.

Should I keep Crawly out of the rack until I get another good feed into her to make sure this was just a fluke thing or is regurgitation not that big of a deal if she hasn't shown any other signs of sickness?

[kitedemon]

regurgitation is a big deal. It can be a husbandry issue or a rodent preparation issue or health issue or even a combination of all of any of them. I'd treat is as a serious illness that needs attention not just a passing oh it happens sometimes.