Sufficient quarantine distance.

[Skittles1101]

I color code my hemostats with colors duct tape, along with any other instruments. QT red, established green

[mattchibi]

What would I do without you guys ??

[WingedWolfPsion]

I do still recommend quarantining in a separate room, because new arrivals may come in with that dreaded scourge of the snake room...mites.
Mites by themselves are just a nuisance, but they are implicated in transferring IBD, and may possibly transfer other diseases as well. I keep my quarantine racks upstairs, and the rest of my collection downstairs.

I had heard of IBD being carried for years by boa constrictors, but I had not heard of it being carried for that long in ball pythons. Do you have a reference for that? It's the reason I don't have boas in my collection, and won't, until I have a separate reptile room for them, away from my ball pythons.

[kitedemon]

That is very true. I actually forgot to mention that I use isolation tubs a but in a tub system. A smaller tub kept in a larger one and the outside larger one I cover the bottom in diatomaceous earth, any mites or other insects cannot survive a trek though the DE. Dri-Die would likely work oil and or soapy water anything that makes a barrier to insects leaving the Q tub and entering the room. The separate room world be awesome if I had an suitable one sadly I don't really. Air carried things are not as likely as other issues, I isolate travel of insects too.

[Annarose15]

That is very true. I actually forgot to mention that I use isolation tubs a but in a tub system. A smaller tub kept in a larger one and the outside larger one I cover the bottom in diatomaceous earth, any mites or other insects cannot survive a trek though the DE. Dri-Die would likely work oil and or soapy water anything that makes a barrier to insects leaving the Q tub and entering the room. The separate room world be awesome if I had an suitable one sadly I don't really. Air carried things are not as likely as other issues, I isolate travel of insects too.

Very clever idea with the DE! I never would have thought of that.

[kitedemon]

I take in lots of rescues, isolation is very important. I can't easily or reasonably have great physical isolation so I do the best I can with what I have.

[snake lab]

I dont worry about mites from new animals cause as soon as they go in the q rack they get sprayed with reptile relief and so does the newspaper just as a proventitive measure. Your collection is only as good as how proactive you are. When dealing with a collection a little ocd is a good thing lol

[majorleaguereptiles]

A safe distance would be any distance where you won't jeopardize cross contamination. Whether it's an adjacent room, or another facility/house many miles away. Different tools, scales, instruments, housing should all be kept separate. So whatever distance works as long as there isn't any cross contamination.

The proper length for quarantine is 6 months!!! The fact is, the stuff that you really don't want in your collection can have a incubation period that isn't noticeable for 6 months or more! One of the best reptile vets here in California, Dr. Thomas Boyer recently discussed with me that boas and pythons are living with these deadly and incurable viruses for years! He's taken pythons and boas with IBD, to hear about them actually living even longer than ever studied before. Bacterial infections are mutating and becoming even harder to treat. New paramyxoviruses (PMV) are now showing up in snakes that could be even harder to treat, and in most cases snakes can die without symptoms or signs.

In discussion with Dr. Boyer, he explained disinfecting isn't nearly as important as proper quarantine. Spot cleaning substrate and simply wiping out water bowls with hot water once a week will suffice. All within a healthy collection, is just fine. However, improper quarantine will do far worse damage than not disinfecting tubs once a week.

My biggest recommendation is buying snakes from someone with a great reputation that practices their own 6 month quarantine. To be honest, I don't know many who do. There are a handful of breeders that I would make an exception with quarantine standards, only because I know their own quarantine procedure would match my own.

Another recommendation is have two separate quarantine rooms. Reason is, lets say you purchase 6 snakes 3 months ago and now want to buy 6 more. If you add these snakes into your previous quarantined snakes, that resets the clock. Again, we are talking even more tools, feeding tongs, scales, etc for a 3rd room. This is all part of the game if you want to be 100% clean and not put a large investment at risk.

[MrBig]

For larger collections this is an issue Brent, but for your average hobby breeder this can be avoided by trying to schedule your purchases and delivery of new snakes. I keep all QT animals in same rack on a differant floor of my house. QT has it's own utensils, bowls, tubs, feeding bins, soaking bins. I have hand gell in both areas. Hands are washed before, after and in between hamdlings. Feeders are euthanized and kept seperate in freezer if not eaten by a QT snake. I avoid multiple sets of QT animals by waiting to receive new animals until the old set is out of QT. I QT for a minimum of 3 months and have recently extended that to 4-6 months after some discussions with other breeders. As far as being confident in others QT practices, I try to only do business with people who I feel hold the health of thier animals in as high of regard as I do. I avoid buying from facilities that deal in alot of wild caught specimens, I prefer to buy from smaller scale hobby breeders that I feel completely comfortable with. Knowing your care standards Brent, I qt'd the Fire I got from you for 3 months. The pair I have in QT now will stay there until next season, not because of issues simply because I have no need to introduce them any sooner. Sorry for rambling, but this is an issue that I feel needs discussed more openly and more often.