quarantine

[Linnea]

is it possible to call it quarantine, if i have the two tanks next to each other, as long as the skinks are never in contact and the items used are very well cleaned after use? i will cover the sides of course. not that it helps much other than to not make them attack the glass.

opinion of this?

i have not been able to get the image of that store skink out of my head, but the only place i can fit a tank in my room, when the floor is cold, is next to litchies D: and i think of his well being more than a skink i do not yet know.

i looked at it properly and it had no visible mites, eyes were clear, all toes and tail there. but a shedding problem on the head. it was going out of its hide after i looked at it so i can tell it was not visibly ill. it was also round and well fed. about 1 year old (i wonder if he says that about all skinks he sells lol, but no matter)

did i miss anything i should have looked for?

putting a tank in any other room would not be possible. but i might be able to throw out a lot of things my parents wish me to keep, though this is not really what i would like to do due to the tension it creates.

ideas?

im guessing i can never breed that skink but it was gorgeous IMO..... its the complete opposite kind of northern that litchie is (maybe with a mix of something else. i couldnt tell, im sorry....i just saw on the sides that its definitely got northern in it).

im going back to get photos on thursday after my test(im guessing this will help you help me), if all goes well. if not i will be thinking of another way to secure a steady income and keep more skinks. no worries about litchie, he has triple the amount of everything he could possibly need xD

including superworms. how many can i feed in one go? he already got 10 and didnt seem to like that i put away the box (dont tell my parents~) so he jumped out of hiss terrarium and onto my shoulder to find more.

[Jeff]

is it possible to call it quarantine, if i have the two tanks next to each other, as long as the skinks are never in contact and the items used are very well cleaned after use? ...

It is possible to call it whatever you want, but it won't serve the purpose of a quarantine.

[Linnea]

is it possible to call it quarantine, if i have the two tanks next to each other, as long as the skinks are never in contact and the items used are very well cleaned after use? ...

It is possible to call it whatever you want, but it won't serve the purpose of a quarantine.

xD sorry for my use of words.

so they need to be in separate rooms for a bit more than a month?
or is it okay of they are in different parts of my room? ( about 9 meters apart from eachother, good ventilation)

[Susann]

If you want to quarantine, then you need to keep the animals in question as far apart as you can. The point of a quarantine is that after the animal comes under your care, where you control everything that comes in contact with it, you want to give the new skink time to develop whatever it brings with it.

For example, a small thing, say it has been subjected to mites. He comes to your house. You may not see evidence of the mites until the mites multiply to the point of becoming visible to you. By then, if the skinks are in the same room, especially if the tanks are next to each other, then Litchie would have been subjected to the mites. Even if you don't see ANY mites on Litchie, you would have to put Litchie through the treatment as well.

Something more serious would be if the new skink brings a bacterial or viral ailment with it, then even if they were far apart, Litchie could get infected just by being in the same room.

What are the chances of NEEDING a quarantine? That depends on where the skink has come from, and how long it has been under trustworthy care. Chances of it bringing something that could infect Litchie are probably small. Would they be fine without a quarantine? Likely. Do you want to risk it? That's for you to answer.

Keep the new tank in the bathroom. Put it under the coffe table in the living room. Mine are in tubs right here in a corner of our dining/living room.

Tough! Believe me, I know! Having had a sick skink, it wasn't really a question for me whether to quarantine or not. Even though my new skinks come from a dependable breeder, I still decided there was no way I was risking either group of skinks! I'm not risking my 2 previous guys, and I'm not risking my 3 new "investments"!

Better safe than sorry, I say, but that may just be me.

Every little bit counts though. If you absolutely can't keep them in different rooms, but decide to get the new BTS, then at least do what you can. I know it's cold on the floor, but there are things you can do to fix that; I would get a sheet of Styrofoam (*frigolit* in Swedish), put the tank on it, tape some to 3 of the sides of the tank. The new guy may be warmer than Litchie!

Good luck!

[Linnea]

okies. though i doubt styrofoam would help against the cold on my floor.....i cant feel my feet after having walked on it during winter. i think many from canada who has a drafty cellar under their floor knows what im talking about.....

the chances of needing quarantine is quite low....they checked their animals when they moved into a new building and they all got new substrates/lamps etc. and all the animals in store now are those that werent sold during the reptile event, or that have been in the store for a year or more.

im not so worried about something viral, for some reason its not as usual here, maybe since there arent that many reptiles compared to USA. more likely if it brings something with it it will be mites, which is plenty annoying and stressfull for both reptiles. the new reptile will also have to be given a bath asap, the headscales that are stuck are very much so...