some questions about quarantine

EchoPet

Gecko Obsessed
Messages
408
Location
Little Rock, AR
I'll be getting some new geckos next week, and since I can be paranoid and go overboard about things, I wanted to ask some questions about quarantine in general because most of my experience quarantining animals has been with rodents.

With rodents, a big concern and reason for quarantine was respiratory illness - airborne stuff - so it was important to quarantine in a completely separate airspace (ie, a different room). Is this true of reptiles too, or is it mainly parasites and things that have to be passed through contact that are the issue? How far away is far away enough, basically? In a separate room of the house (what I've always done), or is on the other side of the same room ok? If airspace isn't an issue, and if they're not going to be going into the same tank anyway, in theory would it even be possible to quarantine geckos in close proximity, like in two tanks next to eachother or on the same rack (like, top shelf vs bottom shelf) as long as sanitary precautions were taken between handling and all that and separate stuff were used?

I also figure it's best to use all separate stuff - so I have a second spray bottle, water bottle, tongs, hand sanitizer dispenser, and am planning on setting up a separate feeder colony as well (since uneaten worms get tossed back into the colony after 24 hours). And of course I plan on thoroughly washing my hands between handling.

Anything else? What is your quarantine procedure?

Also, since the thought crossed my mind about buying one of the snakes we have at work, I wondered if I would need to quarantine a reptile I bought if I'd been its caregiver already for several months in the store? The cornsnake in question, for example, we've had since February. Would his time in the store under my care count as a quarantine - since basically they're all under my observation, in a separate airspace, cared for with separate tools, and I change and wash up after work before handling my reptiles at home, etc.
 

acpart

Geck-cessories
Staff member
Messages
15,335
Location
Somerville, MA
I would imagine with reptiles that it is sufficient to have them in a separate tank, to use separate equipment for them and to wash hands well before moving from the quarantined animal to the other animals. I think that if an animal has crypto it's possible that isn't sufficient (but I'm not sure). On the other hand, crypto isn't extremely common. I maintain the protocol I described above.

I don't know what to tell you about the snake question, but I see your point and it makes sense to me.

ALiza
 

BGalloway

New Member
Messages
404
Location
Northeast USA
One little thing I don't think you mentioned; handle and care for the Non-quarantine animals First and the Quarantine animal Last. There's less of a chance of the new animal transmitting something that way even if sanitation is lax.
 

EchoPet

Gecko Obsessed
Messages
408
Location
Little Rock, AR
Thanks for the input Aliza. So you don't think it's necessary for them to be in separate rooms during quarantine? That's what I'm thinking too, but in the past I've always done quarantine in a separate room just in case. This time around it'll be easier if I can keep them all in one room though.

Thanks for mentioning that Yvette, I forgot to include that in my original post.
 

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