A Boa of my own!

[dakski]

The situation so far. I spoke to the vet and they can't see Raz until Monday morning the earliest, and even then they are making a bit of an exception.

The word crypto has been mentioned.

Now I'm terrified. I don't keep a lot of snakes, but those I do I am very attached to. Please allay my fears.

Raz and Helena (Helena is my new BEL BP) have been in a separate quarantine room since I picked them both up less than a week ago (Sunday, October 7). Their enclosures were side by side for convenience with the thermostat. Interaction has been extremely limited as they are new. Helena has not been handled past being placed in her enclosure, having water changed and temps checked with a heat gun. Raz has been detailed above. I will note that in the few handling sessions that have occurred, Raz was always handled second and last. Nothing has been moved from one enclosure to the other.

Helena has now been moved out of the same room and is in my bedroom. Very luckily I had three thermostats, I keep a Jumpstart on hand just in case. Raz has been moved even further away from everyone else and is now in my partially finished basement. If he does have crypto I will consider everything he has come in contact with, enclosure, RHP, thermostat probe as lost causes and they will be discarded.

Is my dear little BEL in danger?

Worse, what risk have I exposed my other snakes to? Could I transmit crypto to them somehow?

I couldn't even imagine such an awful thing happening.....

A few things and I will be 100% straight with you.

1. You don't know that Raz has Crypto, I would assume he does, for the safety of everyone else, but I wouldn't sell the farm until your know 100% that he does.

2. Breathe, there is nothing you can do now except get him to the vet and see what they say.

3. Tufts has an ER VET in Grafton, MA, which is where I took Yafe. They are open 24 hours and although it's $180 to show up, everything else was priced fairly and they did a great job. You might want to consider that. Not sure where in MA you are, but that's an option. Also, feel free to PM me and I can give you more information.

I am going to write the next thing for the benefit of everyone else reading this and for future reference.

Proper Quarantine Procedure:

1. Separate tank and separate room, or not near other animals.

2. Separate tools; hemostats for feeding, hooks, hides, etc. All unique to quarantined animal.

3. CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN! Paper Substrate, cleaned immediately and well with F10SC and allowed to sit to fully disinfect.

4. Quarantined animal is handled last. NO other animal is touched after quarantined animal on the same day. Hands are thoroughly washed and disinfected after contact with quarantined animal. Clothes are changed as well before touching any other animal in collection.

This lasts 60-90 days, preferably 90 days, and longer, if there are concerns.