Quarantine, too extreme?

[Kristy]

After a debate with another person, I have decided to come here to ask.

It started with someone wanting to house two male crested geckos together. After the dangers of that were discussed I brought up quarantine, for the simple fact that its ALWAYS necessary.

I told him he'd need an extra setup anyways for a 60 to 90 day quarantine and told him to get a vet check.

Someone said they didn't know where I was getting my info from and that that was extreme.

She said that she only quarantines for a few days, two weeks for a pet store gecko. With a fecal. She has also stated that any illness will show up within 7-10 days.

My understanding is that an illness can show up later under stress, or sub par conditions. There can also be a wrong diagnosis, the fecal may not show anything, then weeks later you end up with something like crypto that won't show up on a normal fecal and doesn't always show its symptoms sometimes for a couple of months. There for 60 to 90 days is not extreme.

How long do you keep your animals in quarantine? Is it safe to say that two weeks, is just NOT long enough?

[littleindiangirl]

2 weeks sounds crazy! At least 90 days.... you never know what they are harboring.

[Freakie_frog]

OOpps I missed the crestie part..

[JLC]

I don't know enough about cresties to give a specific answer to them. But I would dare to say that proper quarantine could depend very much on what species you're discussing. And it could very well be overkill to apply ball-python QT practices (which is what is most often discussed here) to geckos.

[Kristy]

I know with Leopard geckos, and Ball pythons the quarantine time should be 90 days with a fecal. I guess I applied that rule to my cresties after doing so with Leos and a rescue ball. I guess even if it is overkill for cresties, I am playing it waaayyy on the safe side.

[JLC]

It certainly can't hurt to be "too careful"!! If someone else doesn't want to be that cautious....well, we all have our own choices to make and lesons to learn!

[Kristy]

It certainly can't hurt to be "too careful"!! If someone else doesn't want to be that cautious....well, we all have our own choices to make and lesons to learn!

Right on the money Judy I personally would rather not learn the hard way.

[Laooda]

I JUST talked to Emily about this....

I added two new ladies to Crest-ville here, and one I was/am not concerned with because she came from a board member, but the other... straight off a vendor table. She said 60-90 days is standard. Because I am not familiar with the vendor, I opted for the 90 day QT....

Just thought I'd throw that out there!

[mlededee]

60-90 days is a good quarantine period for cresteds, although i lean toward 90 days if the source isn't extremely reliable (a.k.a. well known breeder). the biggest concern with cresteds is entamoeba invadens: http://www.ciliatus.com/content/inde...=42&Itemid=207. this can appear in seemingly healthy geckos when they are presented with the stress of a new environment (or any other stress) but may not show up for several weeks. it is highly contagious, and even if other geckos that come in contact with the sick gecko do not appear to get sick right away they will harbor the illness and it can appear later during a time of stress and prove fatal.

the fact that this person does fecals is good, but that alone should not be cause for shorter quarantine. imagine if a new gecko had entamoeba invadens but it was missed in the fecal. putting that gecko with her other geckos would then spread it to them and everything that the affected geckos came in contact with (food dishes, cage furniture, etc.). 2-3 weeks later the new gecko starts to show signs of illness and one can only hope that it will be caught in time, properly diagnosed, and treatment administered to the entire colony.

it is always better to be safe than sorry, and it's just silly to say that your QT practice is extreme based on the time you QT for. i'd prefer to QT for a decent amount of time rather than risk the health of my entire colony--seems like kind of a no-brainer.

[Kristy]

60-90 days is a good quarantine period for cresteds, although i lean toward 90 days if the source isn't extremely reliable (a.k.a. well known breeder). the biggest concern with cresteds is entamoeba invadens: http://www.ciliatus.com/content/inde...=42&Itemid=207. this can appear in seemingly healthy geckos when they are presented with the stress of a new environment (or any other stress) but may not show up for several weeks. it is highly contagious, and even if other geckos that come in contact with the sick gecko do not appear to get sick right away they will harbor the illness and it can appear later during a time of stress and prove fatal.

the fact that this person does fecals is good, but that alone should not be cause for shorter quarantine. imagine if a new gecko had entamoeba invadens but it was missed in the fecal. putting that gecko with her other geckos would then spread it to them and everything that the affected geckos came in contact with (food dishes, cage furniture, etc.). 2-3 weeks later the new gecko starts to show signs of illness and one can only hope that it will be caught in time, properly diagnosed, and treatment administered to the entire colony.

it is always better to be safe than sorry, and it's just silly to say that your QT practice is extreme based on the time you QT for. i'd prefer to QT for a decent amount of time rather than risk the health of my entire colony--seems like kind of a no-brainer.

Thank you Emily. Thats basically what I was trying to tell her. She wouldn't listen.

There are just too many things that can go wrong, its just not worth it to take short cuts with your animals.