I just wanted to share my recent experience from attempting to assemble a new colony of graeca in my tortoise breeding efforts. Many of you helped me identify some of animals via pictures here and for that I am grateful.
I am posting this just as an example of how serious quarantine observation periods can be. Upon receipt of the first 2.2 graeca, one male immediate fell ill with symptoms that appeared to be pneumonia-like. He perished several days later. About a week and a half later, the female that he arrived with also fell ill and went through treatment with two different sets of antibiotics and nearly fully recovered. During her illness, I administered meds and had to tube feed her for a period as she went off food as her illness set in.
I had quarantined the pair and taken precaution to ensure the other two were no where near other species that I kept. I discovered that the other female was not a female at all and sought more females to build up an adequate sex ratio for the colony.
New animals arrived which I again kept separate and monitored. Many of the graeca (goldens of two types) demonstrated minor RNS but nothing major. Most I didn't treat but optimized their environment to the warm/hot and dry that they like and they responded.
At this point I was keeping 3 different quarantined groups of graea but collectively was still off in sex ratios for a future breeding group. I was offered a few more females to balance that equation which put me in the position of having 4 separately maintained quaratine groups.
Fast forward a couple of weeks. The handful of sickly animals that I had which were all maintained solo up to now were not fully recovered. I had not had experience like this before where new imports did not recover with traditional treatment plans for stress, parasites and URI. Additionally while medicating and force feeding, I noticed some things I had never seen before. I took two of the animals to UC Davis vet school to have pathology run on them.
It took 6 weeks to get the results but of the 15 animals that have come to me from 3-4 different import groups, 3 have been confirmed with herpes virus and 1 with micoplasma.
Taking in newly imported animals can sometimes be fairly straight forward. Other times it can get quite crazy, expensive and dangerous.
I keep 3 other species of tortoises which are all stable breeding assurance colonies. Herpes virus is a serious threat, particular in a large collection setting.
I post this not to scare you but to paint a picture of what is at stake sometimes when individuals recommend taking quarantine seriously. Sometimes it can be much more serious than just worms, flagellates or bacterial infections.
I know there has been a lot of discussion lately both here and other forums about taking in WC animals. If you keep groups of animals, its definitely something to be aware of and effective quarantine and husbandry should be managed with this in mind.
Hope you find this helpful or at least eye opening.
Respectfully,
Paul R
I am posting this just as an example of how serious quarantine observation periods can be. Upon receipt of the first 2.2 graeca, one male immediate fell ill with symptoms that appeared to be pneumonia-like. He perished several days later. About a week and a half later, the female that he arrived with also fell ill and went through treatment with two different sets of antibiotics and nearly fully recovered. During her illness, I administered meds and had to tube feed her for a period as she went off food as her illness set in.
I had quarantined the pair and taken precaution to ensure the other two were no where near other species that I kept. I discovered that the other female was not a female at all and sought more females to build up an adequate sex ratio for the colony.
New animals arrived which I again kept separate and monitored. Many of the graeca (goldens of two types) demonstrated minor RNS but nothing major. Most I didn't treat but optimized their environment to the warm/hot and dry that they like and they responded.
At this point I was keeping 3 different quarantined groups of graea but collectively was still off in sex ratios for a future breeding group. I was offered a few more females to balance that equation which put me in the position of having 4 separately maintained quaratine groups.
Fast forward a couple of weeks. The handful of sickly animals that I had which were all maintained solo up to now were not fully recovered. I had not had experience like this before where new imports did not recover with traditional treatment plans for stress, parasites and URI. Additionally while medicating and force feeding, I noticed some things I had never seen before. I took two of the animals to UC Davis vet school to have pathology run on them.
It took 6 weeks to get the results but of the 15 animals that have come to me from 3-4 different import groups, 3 have been confirmed with herpes virus and 1 with micoplasma.
Taking in newly imported animals can sometimes be fairly straight forward. Other times it can get quite crazy, expensive and dangerous.
I keep 3 other species of tortoises which are all stable breeding assurance colonies. Herpes virus is a serious threat, particular in a large collection setting.
I post this not to scare you but to paint a picture of what is at stake sometimes when individuals recommend taking quarantine seriously. Sometimes it can be much more serious than just worms, flagellates or bacterial infections.
I know there has been a lot of discussion lately both here and other forums about taking in WC animals. If you keep groups of animals, its definitely something to be aware of and effective quarantine and husbandry should be managed with this in mind.
Hope you find this helpful or at least eye opening.
Respectfully,
Paul R
Jim got busy and then I started working on the new house which has consumed my weekends. I will make it happen before the season is over.
