QUARANTINE RULES

Wed Apr 20, 2005 6:34 am

Well - I've noticed we don't appear to have a sticky or article specifically about quarantine and how important it is... So I just wondered if this is something we should have?

This is what I understand - perhaps others could add their own points to it on the things I'm not so familiar with for people who aren't aware of the benefits vs risks with quarantining....

Quarantine is mainly of importance to pet owners in the US and Canada (please post and let me know if it's so much of an issue elsewhere - I know that in the UK the rat to rat communicable viruses are milder and therefore quarantine isn't as vital here). The main problems are things such as SDA and Sendai, but other infections and parasites such as mites and lice are also relevant here.

While a vet check can rule out diseases evident at the time of the vet's visit, some conditions, including the viral ones, may not become immediately evident, and it may be several weeks before symptoms are seen. In addition, rats can actually carry various infections, including the main viral ones mentioned above, without ever displaying symptoms, but can still transmit them to other rats.

For this reason, it's best to quarantine your rat for 2 or preferably 3 weeks before introducing them to your existing colony. While this is primarily to protect your existing rats from diseases that the new rats may be carrying, if you have recently had an infection in your exisiting colony, it could potentially spread to your new rats as well.

In order for quarantine to be effective, you need to keep them in separate airspace. Preferably different houses or a heated/cooled garage, but a lot of people will not have the ability to do this. In this case, keep them as far apart as possible, opposite ends of the house. Ideally you want to make sure that they are not sharing the same air, because some conditions can spread as droplets through the air. If you have a central air conditioning system or ductwork in your house, you may need to consider this in your placement of the cages.

Change your clothes and shower/wash your hair between seeing groups of rat, and preferably leave 3 or 4 hours between visits as well. It's possible to carry some of the viruses and mites, for example, on your clothing, skin and/or hair. By changing your clothes, showering and waiting for this length of time, you should have the best chance of ensuring that you do not carry anything between colonies.

Remember too that quarantine must be carried out for three weeks assuming there is no sign of illness in any rat. If any rat shows illness (whether your new rats or your existing colony), you must treat that and maintain the quarantine until 3 weeks after all symptoms have cleared and the rat has been at full health.

One final point is that quarantining does not give a 100% guarantee that no illness will slip by. Even in the best of circumstances, problems can arise even after a full and careful quarantine. However, by following these steps you can vastly reduce the risk of health problems.

I know some people have wondered if it is necessary to do this for all rats, or just pet store/rescue rats. Really you should do this for all rats, even from reputible breeders. I don't think (though the breeders on here can confirm or deny this) that any reputable breeder would complain about you running your own quarantine process. While they work exceedingly hard to prevent illnesses in their own colonies, and reputible breeders will promtly "lockdown" in the case of an infection, including contacting people who may have been affected, unforseen things will occasionally happen.

Basically - any instance where a rat may come into contact with another rat, either directly or via an intermediate person, there is potential for diseases to be transmitted. It's a sad but true fact of life. Sad

Ultimately, the more of these steps you can perform, the lower your chance becomes that any disease will spread between your rats. Of course in some cases it's not feasible, and in some cases people may choose to break quarantine because keeping the animals quarantine may prove detrimental to the health of the rat (say a power cut, orphaned litters etc) but this is not done without some risk.

I know that this may seem extreme - and as I've mentioned, it's not necessary in some countries to go to these measures. I myself live in the UK, but I do actually quarantine new rats that come in. It's not strictly necessary, but it makes me feel more secure in the health of my rats.

Anyway... hopefully this will be useful for someone, and if other people have more information to add regarding their own countries, methods etc, then it can only help more.

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Andy & The Rats

~ Darwin ~ Maisie ~ Ella ~ Zak ~

~ Finn ~ Malachi ~ Azrael ~ Newton ~ Charlie ~

Wed Apr 20, 2005 2:22 pm

	Quote:
	I don't think (though the breeders on here can confirm or deny this) that any reputable breeder would complain about you running your own quarantine process.

Most of the breeders I know expect new owners to quarantine and will educate their buyers who are unfamiliar with the process. It's even in my contracts that new buyers are urged to practice good quarantine policies.

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Scout of Manitou Mischief Rattery

Wed Apr 20, 2005 6:46 pm

that was helpful. thanks.

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RIP Slippery

Pets i currently have
two rats- Ciceil and Fry
leopard gecko- Tango
lop mix rabbit- Ryo (bun)
and a boyfriend- Bruces

Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:24 pm

what's a power cut?

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mommy to:

1 human son: Corvis
1 feline son: Sesshoumaru
1 lost feline daughter: Snowball

Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:35 pm

When the electricity goes off... For example, in the winter, if the electricity goes off, and you can only heat one room with an oil/gas fire, and it's freezing.... that would be a situation where not breaking quarantine would be detremental to the health of the rats.

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Andy & The Rats

~ Darwin ~ Maisie ~ Ella ~ Zak ~

~ Finn ~ Malachi ~ Azrael ~ Newton ~ Charlie ~

Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:00 pm

ah well that makes sense now. i thought it was some rat term i hadn't heard of before.

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mommy to:

1 human son: Corvis
1 feline son: Sesshoumaru
1 lost feline daughter: Snowball

Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:56 pm

It's when one rat barbers another and leaves only a mohawk. Mr. Green

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Kate & the M.O.U.S.
If you saw a man drowning and you could either save him or photograph the event ... what kind of film would you use?
~ Anonymous

Wed Apr 20, 2005 10:07 pm

Kate... maybe we need to add that to the rat dictionary. Mr. Green

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Andy & The Rats

~ Darwin ~ Maisie ~ Ella ~ Zak ~

~ Finn ~ Malachi ~ Azrael ~ Newton ~ Charlie ~

Thu Apr 21, 2005 12:38 am

Andy, you are so AWESOME. That was my next request for a sticky! I personally prefer my adopters (unless they don't have rats) to do a minimum of three weeks at a seperate location just to be on the safe side.

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Shadow Brook Rodentry

Bridge Ratties: Samson, Wraith, Aiko, Kasper - I <3 you & miss you.

Thu Apr 21, 2005 11:57 pm

I just got a litter of orphaned ratlets from a lady here in town. She had bred her hairless boy with one of her girls and hoped for hairless babies, but alas, no such luck. I've had the new ratlets sepparated from my two own girls, they are in the living room, and the new rats are in the bedroom. These new ratlets are extremely well looking, not even a single sneeze! However, Im going to have my boyfriend take our girls to his apartment tonight we I can keep watch over the new rats, which we plan to keep a couple of. All the quarantine info is really interesting to me, as I just never thought it was that big of a deal until I got into the rat world @_@. It must be though, because every site I visit had a long list about how to quarantine ^^; Thanks for the info!

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Shawnna B <:3( )~~~~~

Sat Jul 23, 2005 7:36 am

We adopted two sisters almost three weeks ago. We got their mother three days ago - there were dominance issues at her new home. She was separated from the other rats for a week, but I'm not sure if she was in a different room or not. She's in a separate cage in a different room than the other rats. She has been sneezing since we got her, but she seems to be doing it less now than she did the first day. Is there anything in particular that I need to be aware of or to look for? This is our first time with rats as pets, so any advice would be helpful. Thank you.

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--Suz

3 rats
4 mice
2 dogs
2 homo sapiens (my favorite)

Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:32 am

Thanks for that.
I also think it's good that you made it known how quarantine isn't as much of an issue in the UK. I've lost track of the amount of people from outside the UK who aren't aware that it's not as much of a necessity here as it is there, and I've actually been flamed in the past (on other forums, not here) for not quarantining my babies, and was given the old 'you're a terrible owner!' stick. So hopefully, this will prevent this happening to anyone else.

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www.shadowrat.com

Thu Sep 29, 2005 2:39 am

I have one question here....

Why must you Quarantine if you get your rat from a reputable breeder (pick any one of many from RatPalace) if they have essentially been watching their babies for dieseases and pests for the past 6 weeks of baby rearing/weaning time AND you know your rats are all healthy and well.

What purpose does Quarantine accomplish if the breeders rats are clean and you trust them (perhaps you are friends) and you just took your rats to the vet.

Why is it necessary then?

Thu Sep 29, 2005 3:40 am

Because ultimately, you can't trust everyone! Even if the breeder is thoroughly reputable and completely trustworthy, you can't be sure that everyone that the breeder has been in contact with has been so careful.

How many times have you walked into a pet store, touched stuff, maybe even handled the rats, and then gone home and gone into the room with the rats without waiting 3 hours, changing all clothes, showing thoroughly etc? How many times have you had visitors over that might have small animals (not just rats) and ensured that they have done the same kind of things above? Although either of those won't necessarily (and often doesn't) result in illness, it is technically enough.

Even a responsible breeder can end up locked down because of an outbreak of SDA, for example. The breeders on here can tell you that themselves, from their own experiences. Contamination to clothes, food bags, litter, etc can happen at any time, and although the rat might be well when it leaves the reputable breeder, how do you know that they haven't introduced a disease inadvertantly from contamination, from a rat that has carried in an illness, despite quarantine and showing no signs, from another breeder that hasn't quarantined properly, from a visitor with a sick rat who hasn't waited a while, changed clothes, showered etc?

Sometimes, a reputable breeder might choose to break quarantine to save the life of a rat or for their wellbeing - I can distinctly remember a case on here a while back where - to try and save some infants, a breeder took in (without quarantine) a handful of baby rats to adopt onto a nursing mother - and this resulted in the death and illness of many of her colony because of the introduction of an infection.

Sometimes rats will carry an illness and not show symptoms. If you quarantine strictly for 3 weeks, you will catch almost anything before introducing the new rat, but occasionally things can be carried longer than that, without symptoms. If the breeder had recently introduced a new rat to the colony that was carrying something despite the quarantine, then you could be bringing home a new rat incubating that disease - the breeder won't know anything about it until the illness shows in their colony.

The only way to ensure that a rat (or people or any animal) is not exposed to any illness is to lockdown completely - no-one handles the rats, no-one touching the breeder, all clothes, air, bags, food, bedding, litter etc completely disinfected and no-one else can possibly come into contact (directly or indirectly) with them. Technically, even walking into a pet store and touching something there could be enough to contaminate you with an infection, which you can then carry home to your colony and infect them with. And that, in the US where the severe viral illnesses are a real concern, is why you should be incredibly careful when it comes to your rats - and even mice, gerbils, hamsters etc can carry some illnesses that could be transmitted to rats, not to mention rats kept in poor conditions without quarantine and lots of turnover, or wild rodents.

Quarantine does not give 100% protection against illness - it just gives you a very high chance (when done properly and not taken for granted) of avoiding illness. Unfortunately, you simply cannot trust that everyone is as careful, and - even if they have been - there are still times when infection manages to take hold, despite stringent quarantine procedures.

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Andy & The Rats

~ Darwin ~ Maisie ~ Ella ~ Zak ~

~ Finn ~ Malachi ~ Azrael ~ Newton ~ Charlie ~

Thu Sep 29, 2005 6:27 am

I'm glad you answered in such detail. I know I'm not the only one that surely had thought that question at some time!

And honestly it's better to ask and have it out there than let the answer not be put out there and people mess up because they're sure its okay or something!

Thanks Willow

Thu Sep 29, 2005 7:14 am

	LittleWillow wrote:
	How many times have you walked into a pet store, touched stuff, maybe even handled the rats, and then gone home and gone into the room with the rats without waiting 3 hours, changing all clothes, showing thoroughly etc? How many times have you had visitors over that might have small animals (not just rats) and ensured that they have done the same kind of things above?

Too many times to count, me. Sad

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Kate & the M.O.U.S.
If you saw a man drowning and you could either save him or photograph the event ... what kind of film would you use?
~ Anonymous

Thu Sep 29, 2005 10:20 pm

Celynny - definitely true. In all honesty, I hadn't thought of that aspect of it (probably because of my microbiological/epidemiological education) but yes, if you don't understand the necessity of it, you may be tempted to say "OK" just this once, which could be the cause of a nasty outbreak. It's definitely better to understand why you are doing something, rather than just following the advice blindly without knowing why.

Kate - aye... most people don't even think about it. In most cases, no harm will come of it (particularly in countries where the viral illnesses aren't such a problem like the UK) but even then, mites and so on can sneak home in litter or on clothes, etc. And the other thing is that people with other small furries (like mice, hammies etc) don't always think about the possibility of cross infection. Sendai can infect mice, rats, hamsters, and guinea pigs, and various bacterial strains can infect a range of animals (including humans, cats, dogs etc). Of course, you can't lock them up in a plastic bubble and protect them from every bug, but you can bear these things in mind when introducing a new rat to a colony, or if there is an outbreak of illness in your area etc.

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Andy & The Rats

~ Darwin ~ Maisie ~ Ella ~ Zak ~

~ Finn ~ Malachi ~ Azrael ~ Newton ~ Charlie ~