Do you run fecals on your animals?

[WingedWolfPsion]

I pick several animals from my collection to run fecals on every year. I don't run them on all new arrivals, because the vets here will not run a fecal on an animal without seeing it first...that means $60 for the visit, plust $20 for the fecal, and $80 per animal is a bit steep when I buy them 10 at a time--for now. If any animal behaves abnormally or shows any signs in quarantine, of course they get tested.

If I have an animal in my collection (not in quarantine) test positive, I treat every animal it could possibly have contacted (all in the same rack, all bred with or that bred with its mate, anything that shared equipment with it, etc--even if that's the entire collection). In the future, however, I will have them done on all new arrivals. Once my collection's up well over 200 animals, it would be very silly not to.

I've also acquired a very good microscope, and plan to teach myself to screen them...if I spot anything, then I can have a vet confirm it and treat it. I expect it will take a few years to learn to read fecal floats reliably, and identify stuff, but I consider this a tremendously useful skill to save both time and money, and it will enable me to screen my entire collection regularly.