Question about Quarantine

[DVirginiana]

I'm not planning on getting more snakes right now, just curious about this... I've read on here a couple times that a QT should ideally take place in a totally different room than the rest of your collection. However, with my colubrids I've always heard that the main thing isn't distance so much as just not handling your collection after handling the new snake or using any of the same equipment.

The reason I've always heard for this is that snake diseases typically aren't airborne and require contact to spread. Is that different for BPs and other constrictors? Or is it more from the standpoint that people with BPs are more likely to have a much larger and more valuable collection than a couple colubrids?

[bcr229]

Ideally quarantine will keep the new critter completely isolated from the main collection, with no possibility for cross-contamination of equipment, feeders, water, or air/HVAC. While most reptile diseases aren't thought to be airborne, little study has been done on their persistance on surfaces, so IMO it's better to err on the side of caution.

Most people don't have the resources to put multiple structures onto their property so they can isolate new arrivals. I manage by having a friend keep my new acquisitions at his place for three months before I bring them home, as his wife doesn't like snakes but will put up with 1-2 at a time in the house. She figured out pretty quickly though that once QT was complete and the snake came to my house, it wasn't long before another snake was brought into her house...

I've also seen accounts from people who have had BPNV, OPMV/Ferlavirus, or something else (usually unidentified) rip through their collections of pythons and boas; is there a disease in colubrids that causes the same levels of devastation to a collection?

[DVirginiana]

Besides a communicable fungus that's usually seen only in wild snakes, there's nothing I'm aware of that can really devastate a collection of colubrids like that. There's not been much research done on it, but there's no known cure and it seems to be highly contagious; a real worry though since a lot more colubrids are wc than constrictors (at least here in the US).

I actually do something similar since my parents are sort of into snakes as well (and have had a wonderful extra room since I moved out). Currently waiting for the QT to finish up on a female garter they're loaning me to breed this season... I feel like it usually goes the other way, where they'd keep my male, but I have better luck with getting the young ones started eating.

[mohawk]

Let me add to this question ....... Say you are receiving 4 new snakes, from 4 different breeders .
Do you quarantine them in 4 different rooms, or in 1 quarantine room where 1 of them being sick,
could potentially get the others sick .

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Actually quarantine should be the same for any species of snakes and yes even if rare OPMV have been found in colubrids as well.

If you are really paranoid like me yes 4 snakes from 4 different sources means 4 different QT locations, think about it this way it only take one animal in proximity of others to start having issues so what is out on those 4 snakes one has issues even something as simple as mites?