quarantine period?

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jasso2

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how long should a quarantine period be and what signs should i be looking for if they are infected or have diseases. i just got 3 new russian 1.2 in the house and 3.3 russians outside. im almost certain taht the ones outside got worms, which i heard is normal since they live outside but are worms transferred????

im still looking in on how to deworm my tortoises myself i just need to be sure i do it right. should of thought of vet prices before i bought 20 tortoises. its just so addicting.
 

Jacqui

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Unfortunately, most folks getting pets, especially reptiles it seems, forget about needing vets in the near future. Atleast it seems all your currently worried about is worms, not RI and other health problems.

Yes, worms can easily be spread from one tortoise to another. Also if you worm a tort, but not clean his environment, he can get reinfected by the same eggs he has already passed. So you have to do a two part thing. Plus often a worming will not get rid of all the worms.

The plus side is that a small load of worms is normal and usually has no ill effect on a tortoise. Unfortunately, they can suddenly bloom into unhealthy loads. The two most common causes for that seem to be wrong diets (like feeding Russians a lot of fruits) and the worse seems to be from stress of the tortoise.

What a lot of folks do, is if their torts are acting fine, eating, gaining weight, ect.., just ignoring the worms. They might go for the natural way of worming (feeding real pumpkin not the canned pumpkin that if you look close is made from sweet taters/yams), which won't totally worm a tort just helps manage them I guess you would say.

Some also will take a random couple of samples in to a vet and have them analyzed. However the taking of a stool sample in and being told it's negative, does not mean you don't have worms, just means that sample is not showing any.

Then still others, will just routinely worm all their animals.

For quarantine periods different folks use different amounts. I think the least you should do is three months. I usually go for a year myself. A lot can depend on where you got the animals, it's health (remembering that the worse diseases seem to stay hidden/dormant until suddenly they strike), the age of the animal, wild caught. long term captive, or captive bred, ect..,

The signs to look for are the normal things: is it eating, is it growing, is it gaining weight, does it ever have bubbles, do you ever hear it breathing, if you know where it came from keep in contact with the seller - are his animals staying healthy, ect..,

Even then you have those problems which you never see until too late. Once you put the animals together, you can't go back and not have exposed them to each other.

Remember in quarantine periods you need to wash between going from one bunch to another. Remember the clothes and shoes you wear, will also be possibly bringing disease/germs to the next enclosure you enter or tort you hold. Food and water carriers or containers can carry them too. It's always wiser to do your older group, before the new one. To share nothing between cages. To have the groups housed as far from each other as possible.
 

Itort

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Well stated Jacqui
 

K9KidsLove

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Jacqui said:
They might go for the natural way of worming (feeding real pumpkin not the canned pumpkin that if you look close is made from sweet taters/yams), which won't totally worm a tort just helps manage them I guess you would say.

Just wanted to mention that Walmart carries Libby's 100% pumpkin. That is what I give all my critters once a month. Most everyone, except for a couple of my bearded dragons, loves it.
Patsy
 
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