Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm wondering how everyone else does things compared to others I know as well as myself. Always room for improvement...

#1 -- How do you quarantine new arrivals? As in:

Separate rack?
Separate room?
Separate building?
How long?
If one animal arrives one day, and another animal arrives 2 weeks later, does the first animal's quarantine time get extended because they had to share the area with the new animal (thus exposing it if the new one carries anything)? If not, how do you work around this?

#2 -- How do you cycle a male through his females?

Do you leave him in for a certain period of days?
Do you leave him in just until you witness a lock?
Do you put him in with females one right after the other until he's gone through them all, then give him a break/rest period?
Do you give him a rest period/meal between each female?
If so, how long?
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~* Jen *~

Pink Lady Constrictors

You posted this while I was writing my novel above.

I quarantine until they poop and I can get a fecal done. Because that usually takes a couple of weeks, I thought I would be able to locate mites or discover any other problems. Well, I found this may not be good enough. But, I don think for things like IBD that balls exhibit symptoms very quickly and probably will never make it out of quarantine before they are dead. I keep my quarantine animals in a rack in another room. I am interested to see what others have to say about this.
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Happy Herping,
Jody Barnes
Royal Kreationz

My snakes aren't fat, they're big boned.

I try to limit my males to at most 4 females a season (this is an arbitrary number I've come up with that just seems reasonable to me-perhaps I'm projecting ). After cooling begins in November, I place a male in with a female on Monday, record the date of the pairing, and leave him until Friday, when I remove him to his own enclosure for the weekend for some time off. On Monday I attempt feedings (of course many, male and female alike, are off feed, but I always try a small meal). Then I clean cages, and finally place each male in with the next female on his list. If a male is in shed I wait until this is completed before another pairing is attempted.

This has worked well for me, but there are myriad other methods that I'm sure would prove equally effective.
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Brad Chambers

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

Due to living at home, part of the agreement worked out with my family is that everything I bring home must fit in my room. So, I can't quarantine new animals anywhere except in the same room everything else is in.
So, with that in mind, I don't purchase breeding age animals close to breeding season (less temptation), I try to purchase from either someone I trust (like the pastel from BHB) or from a place where I've been able to observe the animal for a few weeks (such as the petstore I work for).
When I bring it home, it's housed in its own tub, usually on a shelf separate from the main group of snakes. I wash my hands inbetween handling it and handling the others. I also spray the tub and surrounding area once a week with lice spray for about 2 months (I also do this to the whole collection if anything at the store I work for comes down with mites). I keep an eye on the snake, and once it's eating regularly, defecating normally, and behaving normally at the end of the two month period...it just stays separate because there's no reason to mix the snakes if it's not breeding season anyway.
The result has been that the shortest quarantine any of my snakes has had was about 5 months, when I got my first male.
This method works for me and my small collection - not a single mite outbreak, URI, or any other sort of disease or parasite has reared its ugly head, knock on wood.

Breeding - I've just got the one breeding age female, so my biggest concern is making sure both animals have enough time to themselves. I found with last year's male that leaving him in until copulation, then taking him out for a two week break (more for her sake than his), seemed to work. This year she seemed to get knocked up after one accidental breeding a few months ago, and the intentional one a few weeks before ovulation.

I hope you get more responses!

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire