Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I use a "quarentine closet", a large hallway closet outside my herp room. I use plain old rubbermaids or sterilites. I leave newbies in q. for 30 - 60 days if they aren't showing any problems. Some of my friends think I am too paranoid. A few years ago I saw a friend's entire collection of GTPs & ATB's (18 snakes) wiped out by some freaky infection. He lost a load of money in snakes & vet bills. I like to think I am just cautious.

That's not paranoid, it's smart. I don't think 30 days is enough, though. I quarantine for a minimum of 90 days. I also use a separate room from my collection and the cages and furnishings in the quarantine room stay there. They are never used in the collection. Everything is marked "QUARANTINE" in big red letters, so I don't accidentally move something. I also make it a point to clean the cages in quarantine last and if I'm feeding, I feed quarantined animals last. That way I don't inadvertently vector some bug into the collection.

That sounds like an awesome setup having a large closet like that. I applaud both of you for taking quarantining seriously. 30-90 days is a big difference however both ends are equally recommended by many experienced herpers. My personal opinion is that 30-60 days is long enough if well monitored and vet checked (general health blood screen too if your dead serious). The minimum 30 days allows any disease process or parasites to be discovered. The arguement for longer periods of quarantine is based on pathogens that can remain inert for a while. Because this arguement can easily extend the time to 6 months - 1year my opinion is that reasonable caution negates 30days if carefull, to 60 days if extra concern is desired. But as a rule of thumb, you can never be too carefull.
Now for someone who just has lots of pets as opposed to a "collection" my quarantining consists of keeping animals in seperate cages before mixing during this time, plus keeping everything super clean as always. Keeping new animals on the other side of the room, or in a different room from related animals also inhibits disease transfer.

I work with Chameleons just baout 99% and I quarentine all WC for 4 - 6 weeks and seperate them in to 260 gallon reptariums by size, smaller if the cham is smaller or if there are only a few to size together.

I treat them all with Worm Guard and take random stool samples to the vet weekly for testing just to be safe.

If any of them start to act funny or seem to not acclimate well, I will then seperate tehm again into smaller 22-38 gallon reptariums for closer checking.

If they are CBorn I use the same procedure if they were from WC parents.

If they are CBred and Born I take a direct stool sample for testing.

Since I work with Chameleons only, the ones that are not sold after within 2 weeks of the 4 - 6 weeks quarentine all go to seperate cages anyway since Chams need to be seperated.

I do at times keep several babies (1-3 month) in a set up together depending on the type of Cham.
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I am going to be getting a stp very soon here and since i have not brought new boids into the house for a while now, i am going to be setting up a sweater box for him in the bathroom. It is humid and warm in there anyway and bloods seem to do well in sweater box setups when they are young.
Since i am more paranoid than ever about ibd (and its recent mutatings) i will be keeping him in there for at least 3 months. After that, he will be moved into a 55 gal in the reptile room.
I am much more careful about quarenteening with boids than any other animal, i only use strict quarantine with them. Colubrids (so far) dont have any air borne diseases (that i know of), so i am not so afraid of that since i keep all of my animals separated anyway.
Also, I think it depends really on where you get your new animals from. A newly aquired animal from a reputable breeder or from a friends collection i think could be quarantined for less time than an animal bought from an expo. At least that is my thinking. None the less, i keep the animals quarantined at least for a month one way or another, and i always always keep alcohol gel handy for when i move from cage to cage.