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.
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.
