quarantine
The quarantine is an area of terraristic that must be regarded with great attention. Unfortunately not all keepers of reptiles and other animals stick to the easy principles of quarantine and expose their new and old animals to an increased health risk. And that although a correct quarantine only means little additional expenditure of time and work and can prevent from a lot of costs and anger!

The questions that have to be answered are: why? what? when? and how?


Why?

Many people don't see why they should put their animals into quarantine and so they just don't. But the consequences might be of a considerable extent. In the worst case a disregard can lead to the death of one or more animals, or at least to a high financial burden. Imagine the animal suffers from mites, what wild-caught snakes often do. These mites will immediately expand in the whole terrarium. When noticing the mites it is a great expenditure to get rid of them. Everything has to be taken out of the terrarium, cooked and disinfected. Parts of the decoration that you can't do this with have to be thrown away and replaced. The substrate on the ground has to be completely changed. If you have more then one terrarium you might have to clean the others as well. And it's not only the time all this takes, it is also pretty expensive to always buy new decoration. Cork-decoration usually always has to be replaced because is has many cracks where mites can hide and survive all attempts to kill them. If your animal suffers from lung infection or interior parasites the other animals will get infected inevitably. To cure the snakes you will have to pay for the vet and these costs are quite a bit higher than if you had only had to treat one sick animal. And there are several other illnesses that can be prevented by simply using quarantine that otherwise would cause severe damage. Not doing quarantine is to be considered as culpable negligence and does not show great responsibility towards the animals.

What do I need?


You do not need many things to carry out quarantine. To put a single thamnophis into quarantine all you need is a small plastic box - lenght: 40cm/16" , width: 30cm/12", and height: 20cm/8" (if you have more animals it should be bigger) and a source of light (I use the cover of my old aquarium), a water-dish, a bowl for food, a stone (as a shedding-help), toilet paper-rolls or cardboard-boxes as hiding places and some kitchen paper on the ground. The decoration is really cheap and once you have bought the box and the light there are hardly any further costs. Just keep in mind that the things you use in the quarantine basin can only be used there and that they can not be used in the terrarium afterwards! You might want to mark the things you are using in the quarantine basin to prevent a confusion!

one of my quarantine-terrarias!

What do I have to do?

When you have bought a new animal you have to put it into the quarantine box right after you get home! Prophylactically you can already start a treatment against mites. There a several options that I will list under "illnesses". It will be very easy to find mites, that look like red or black spots on the white kitchen paper. As long as the mites are alive and are stick to the snake it is difficult to see them and often snake-keepers think the animal is healthy and all the sudden the whole terrarium and all the other snakes are full of mites. After a short settling-down period you should try and offer the animal food. The first excrements can then be used for an examination. Therefore they should be relatively fresh and not dry. If there is no veterinarian near where you live you can send the sample to exomed . The results and a treatment suggestion usually get back to you within two or three days and the costs are acceptable. All you need to know you can find on the website of exomed. You should take a closely look at the new snake every day. Abnormalties in behavior, strange composition of the excrements, loud breathing-noises, changes in color of the mocous membrance in the mouth or the formation of mucus probably are indications of an illness and need to be reported to a vet.

When?

This question can be answered quickly: as soon as the animal is brought home it has to put into the quarantine box. You will want to set it up before buying the animal. Contacts with the other animals have to be avoided! After handling the new animal you need to wash your hands and of course you have to do that every time you do something in the quarantine box.

How?

Practicing quarantine correctly is not difficult as long as you keep in mind the following: - no contact between terraria and quarantine box. Mites for example are able to "go for short walks" in the house and so there should be a bigger distance between the terraria and the quarantine box. - take care that the box is always clean. Change water and kitchen paper daily! - resist the attempt to let the new snake move in the the other animals after only a few days. In the shortness of the time you might not have detected all illnesses and chances are that other animals get infected like with mites that have not been fully exterminated. - If you bought a wild-caught snake quarantine should take about 4-6 weeks. If you have bought a snake from a breeder that was born in captivity quarantine can be shorter. In any case you need to carry out quarantine until a possible treatment that has resulted from an examination of the snake's excrements can be proven successful by another examination!