Ibd

[recycling goddess]

okay so after a long conversation with jo... this is what i'm going to do.

we are moving the boas into the living room to live. the balls and come coulibrids will live in our bedroom (snake room).

i'll be buying a new set of tongs and marking them as "BOA ONLY"

i'll make sure the balls are taken out in another room... and the boas have 'slither space' in the living room.

also... if a boa refuses a meal (which i'll find amazing in itself LOL) then i'll refreeze it marking it "for boas only"

thanks jo for helping me to work this out so i can keep all my snakes.

[frankykeno]

Posting this just to confirm my convo with you Aleesha and to share it with the forum as a whole (this is good stuff to discuss...anything to do with being careful and responsible is).

Okay Aleesha this is just my take on this and remember I'm no vet nor viral/bacterial specialist or whatever. Just someone who keeps both boa's and BP's.

Move the boa's out of the BP room into your livingroom or whereever is convenient for them to live away permanently from the BP collection (as in another room, closed door, etc.) Buy extra long kitchen tongs for the boa's (you need those anyways as they have long strike ranges). Keep them just for the two boa's. Have seperate ones for the BP's. Feed the BP's one night, the boa's another (always do BP stuff first, boa stuff afterwards and don't return to the BP's right afterwards). Basically normal quarantine procedures but you just do it day to day normal routine. Don't have them out together or exercised in the same area. If you feed f/t and offer a prey to a boa and it is rejected, refreeze it, mark it prominently as FOR BOAS ONLY. Never share rejected prey between any snakes really is best and safest IMHO.

We have both, have never had a problem and follow common sense stuff with them. It can't guarantee you won't have any problems hon, nothing can but then you could bring in a sick BP and have it kill a morph. Quarantine is a way of life especially when you are into some of the bigger dollar snakes.

In the end Aleesha this will be your call and no one can fault you for making the best decisions for your collection, both BP's and boa's.

[recycling goddess]

thanks jo.

[frankykeno]

Anytime sweetie! You just do what you are doing, gather info from many sources, do your research and then make the best, most informed decision you can. That's always best.

[recycling goddess]

informed decision is the vital part of this... thanks everyone for assisting me to make one.

[tigerlily]

Why not donate the tongs you currently have, as the boa only, and get the new tongs for the bps. If you need larger tongs, for the boas, make sure to sterilize the heck out the original pair!

[recycling goddess]

the tongs aren't all that long... so i was going to use some bleach... to sterilize the tongs and all the other stuff (like the poop spoon) etc. and then use everything i already have for the boas... except the tongs.

i'm off to buy some tongs right now!

[Mendel's Balls]

I definately go out of my way to not let anything that has contacted my boa, touch my BPs; being a virus, am I correct in assuming that it cannot be airborne (as bacteria can) and therefore can't infect through non-contact of bodily fluids, or touching an item that had touched the infected snake?

No you are not correct.

Some viruses are airborne, it is just that this virus appears not to propagate by anything that creates biological aerosols (coughing, sneezing, wheezing, etc).

Influenza is caused a virus and it is airborne. The many viruses behind the common cold are transmitted through the air. HIV is a virus, but, as we all know from health class, it is only infectious in certain body fluids.

Bottom line, it all depends on the biology/chemistry of the particular virus and host.

At any rate, I will and have never let my boa come into any physical contact with my BPs; and I go so far as to take a shower after handling my friends' boas, before even going into the room my BPs are in; I have worked too hard on getting these snakes, and invested too much money, to play around; they are not toys.

I do not think this is an unwise practice. When I worked with laboratory animals at a large university, we had a separate room for each species. In addition, closely related species like mice and rats were housed on different floors. Moreover, if you worked with rats on one day, you weren't allowed to go to the mouse colony on the same day and vice versa.

We also had to don disposable booties, hairnets, and lab gowns every time we entered our colony. Traffic through those parts of the building was one-way. There are entrance-only elevators and exit-only elevators, etc.

These rodents were not nude mice, they had functional immune systems. But it takes years of hard work and tons of money to create a transgenic or gene-knockout mice. And institutions that do not use such precautions have had problems with murine viruses wipping out their whole mouse colony, etc. And no one wants to lose the only p53 knockout mice in the world.

Now most beginning reptile breeders are not going to have the ability to take these specific types of precautions. But I think you can take similar precautions like those described by Ginevive. These are not germaphobic , completely irrational fears!

I share this info because I think think it demonstrates the level of precaution should rise based on the level of the operation, the expense of the animals, etc. It comes down to your personal choices for your operation. Which is going to depend on your investment in your animals and the particulars of your stitution.

If I had a morph worth thousands of dollars or I was planning on producing such morph, I would try to house different species in different areas. I would only handle one species a day.

That's me and that's what I would try to do. There are many practical constraints here as well. Maybe there are not enough rooms to house the all the different types of snakes in different rooms.

Then the second-best decision is practical and feasible. House the cornsnakes and pythons in the same room, but segregate the boas in another room...Use seperate instruments for each and every species, etc. These are biologically-informed, practically-constrainted decisions! Very smart in my book.

There are some breeders on here that seem to concentrate only on one species. They likely base this decision on many business choices--not extending yourself to far, marketing, etc.....but they may also base this on biology--i.e. a knowledge of illnesses and the bad effects of pathogens jumping into new host species. Also food for thought.

Others seem to like to diversy their portiflio so to speak.....and not put all their eggs in one species....Again it depends on your personal/business plans.

[Mendel's Balls]

By the way Shelby...my real name is Mike.

[SatanicIntention]

Aleesha, if you've had the boas for even a month, and the Ball Pythons are fine, chances are, they're going to be fine. If you had brought infected snakes into the house, and there had been even the slightest chance of cross-contamination, your Ball Pythons would already be infected and showing signs. Getting rid of them months after having them wouldn't have solved anything. Ya know?

When I got Sonja shipped here, she was quarantined for 6 months, because stress can sometimes bring about illnesses that were in hiding. She didn't show any signs of ANYTHING, so in November I brought her to my house, and everyone's been just fine.

Although I was bad and brought that rescue 3 year old boa into the house right after he was rescued. He is in a different room, but I figured that he isn't carrying anything deadly considering his tankmate for those 3 years isn't dead(male Ball). I need to name that rescue male Ball Python Petri(Petri dish ), Culture or Plague, hehe. He is handled last though, and I wash myself and chlorhexidine myself(shoes even) after messing with him.