Urgent quarantine question!
As most of you know, I will be bringing home a new young corn snake on Friday. I have the tank set up and am turning on heat and hooking up the t-stat today to get a good measure of temps and such.
Here's the problem: I know new snakes have to be quarantined, but I only have ONE ROOM where I can keep snakes at all! The new tank is set up across the room and perpendicular to my BP tank. What can I do?? I just remembered that the two snakes would still be in the same room last night and hurried to put this up now. I will be treating the BP tank and the new corn tank with PAM just in case, but is having them still in the same room going to be a disaster??
Re: Urgent quarantine question!
It would be preferential to have them in separate rooms or even houses if that's an option. If that's as far apart as you can get them, then try and focus on using separate cleaning and feeding supplies and always handle your bp first and then the corn. Never transfer anything from the corn over to the bp.
It's definitely not ideal, but if you can't find a closet or some other room then you'll just have to work with what ya got.
Re: Urgent quarantine question!
what about your dads workshop that your mom mentioned. or are the temps a little extreme?
Re: Urgent quarantine question!
A seperate room would be better but how about popping the corn setup in a walk in closet or something like that? If that's not possible then do all you can to keep everything seperate, and invest in a bottle of gel hand sanitizer.
Re: Urgent quarantine question!
Cool. Thanks for the responses all. :)
I wish I could put it in another room, but there are only three 'rooms' in this apartment: the living room/dining room where the rat cage is, the computer room where the gecko and my rat quarantine cage are, and the bedroom where the snake(s) are. So you see...
As far as the walk-in closet, I had thought of that, for I have a very large one. Problems are the temp and humidity in there get really high cause it's across from the bathroom, and there is no outlet in there. Oh well.
I'll just make sure I take every precaution in handling the two of them and their stuff totally separately. As far as the hand gel, no worries... I have a jumbo bottle of the stuff right in that bathroom :D
Re: Urgent quarantine question!
Why can't you keep the corn in the living/dining room with the rats? My rat rack is 2 steps away from my ball python rack. The snakes know what day is feeding day, and they aren't disturbed by them or act any more aggressive as a result of being housed so close.
Re: Urgent quarantine question!
It's nice to know that snakes and rats can share the same room space and not go nuts at each other's presence. :) Thanks for that knowledge.
The problem I have in this apartment is a total lack of floor space. The dining room is the largest open square area so it contains the largest cage; i.e. the rat cage. I would put the corn in the living room (same open space as the dining room separated by the front door) but there's barely enough room for my couch and coffee table with the 45 degree angled fireplace. You see where this is going. :) It's the main reason (with money being a close second) my partner put an animal limit on me...he doesn't want our little extra floor space taken up by tanks and cages.
Too late, but that means that what I have, I have. I'm lucky to have been able to talk him into the corn, it upped the limit he had on me by one (convinced him it was easier, less space, and cheaper than a Blue tongue, and it wouldn't need extra output of food cause I'll already be breeding mice for my BP).
Ok, enough ranting from me. Thanks everyone for your great responses. Now I know that it won't hurt them to have them in the same room as long as I am SO careful about washing and sanitizing. :D
Re: Urgent quarantine question!
Just to add more experience with the rat and rat snake in the same room.
I have my rat and my hamster living in the same room as my snake. I wash my hands between them so none of them has to smell each other and they've never bit me because of it.