quarantine quarantine one more time quarantine.

mastershake

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so i want to say something. when you get a new baby PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE quarantine it for normally 90 days or at least 60 if nothing else. in a case where you get a baby and a few weeks or a few days later get a second one and you place them together and one comes down with signs of something such as this yellow bump disease right now you do not know who started it at that point. this is not directed at any one person. i have in the past 2 weeks seen this happen 5 different times. the issue here is once you mix them or allow contact between them you can not pick one person to blame for the issue. had you kept them separate and not touched them one after the other or worn gloves etc etc you would then know which one was the issue. in the case of the yellow bumps you may NOT see them right away. we have seen cases where even after the bumps fall off and there are none visibly they can remain contagious and possibly be spread. so even if you don't see them on one baby and you add another one with that one and only see the issue on the second one the first may have been the one carrying this and if the second was not placed with the first it may have remained healthy.

this can happen with parasites, bacterial infections, viral, fungal etc it doesnt matter.

again i'm am not wanting to single anyone out at all and this is not about one person. this is to try to get people to understand how important it is to quarantine then ENTIRELY from each other.
 

Tom

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I second this motion!

My reptile vet friends recommend 6-12 months quarantine. Some tortoise diseases are slow to show up, very difficult and expensive to diagnose, and some of them have no cure or treatment.

If you love your existing tortoise(s), quarantine any newcomers. Please.
 

OkAdiza

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so i want to say something. when you get a new baby PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE quarantine it for normally 90 days or at least 60 if nothing else. in a case where you get a baby and a few weeks or a few days later get a second one and you place them together and one comes down with signs of something such as this yellow bump disease right now you do not know who started it at that point. this is not directed at any one person. i have in the past 2 weeks seen this happen 5 different times. the issue here is once you mix them or allow contact between them you can not pick one person to blame for the issue. had you kept them separate and not touched them one after the other or worn gloves etc etc you would then know which one was the issue. in the case of the yellow bumps you may NOT see them right away. we have seen cases where even after the bumps fall off and there are none visibly they can remain contagious and possibly be spread. so even if you don't see them on one baby and you add another one with that one and only see the issue on the second one the first may have been the one carrying this and if the second was not placed with the first it may have remained healthy.

this can happen with parasites, bacterial infections, viral, fungal etc it doesnt matter.

again i'm am not wanting to single anyone out at all and this is not about one person. this is to try to get people to understand how important it is to quarantine then ENTIRELY from each other.
When you quarantine, should it be a completely different room? Hope this is not a silly question, just wondering if a different enclosure in another part of a room would be too close.
 

ZEROPILOT

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When you quarantine, should it be a completely different room? Hope this is not a silly question, just wondering if a different enclosure in another part of a room would be too close.
As far away as you can.
And use separate tools, bowls, etc.
Wash hands.
 

OkAdiza

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As far away as you can.
And use separate tools, bowls, etc.
Wash hands.
Thanks. I had mine in separate rooms for a month, but when I enlarged the new ones enclosure, I had to move it to the same room. They were on opposite sides of the room, with their own everything, but just wanted to make sure. It’s now been almost 7 months.
 

mastershake

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yes when we quarantine here we actually bring them to a whole different building but many cant do that. even IF you have to use the same room NOTHING can touch one another and never share ANYTHING at all. do not even feed one then go right to feed the other. wash thoroughly or use a different food bag or source etc. things like that. if its been 7 months and no issues with either one you should be okay by now.

i also recc looking for soap that is ammonia based it sucks on your skin but having ammonia is far better then regular hand soap. the way to tell is look on the back of the soap bottle if it says do not mix with bleach or chlorine bleach it is ammonia based.
 

mastershake

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see added comment above after edit also clean everything. use ammonia either straight or a good quat. heat is a good disinfectant also over 175 for around 20 min.
 

ZEROPILOT

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Thanks. I had mine in separate rooms for a month, but when I enlarged the new ones enclosure, I had to move it to the same room. They were on opposite sides of the room, with their own everything, but just wanted to make sure. It’s now been almost 7 months.
I generally quarantine for 6 months.
But 99% of the tortoises I get come from just a few miles away and likely have all been exposed to the same pathogens, etc.
I've been pretty lucky in that I've only had one tortoise with a deadly sickness and it wasn't contagious.
Both my enclosures and quarantine pens are outdoors
 

mastershake

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we have been really lucky here even with taking in rescues. luckily we have a fantastic set of vets we work with. until this yellow bump thing when 3 had this from a usually reputable breeder there were really no issues. and even then it still is only those 3 of the ones we have here in house. qt works. had we have said screw it and added those with the rest we would have lost many more and possibly even our adults.
 

JMM

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see added comment above after edit also clean everything. use ammonia either straight or a good quat. heat is a good disinfectant also over 175 for around 20 min.
While I totally agree with your recommendation to quarantine animals prior to introduction into your facilities, I disagree with your recommendations regarding disinfectants. Ammonia is a not recommended as a disinfectant. Soap and water are excellent cleaning agents. Prior to disinfecting anything, surfaces must be cleaned and free of debris. Quaternary ammoniums, while widely available, are low-level disinfectants. Better would be bleach, virkon, or an activated hydrogen peroxide-based product.
 

Tom

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While I totally agree with your recommendation to quarantine animals prior to introduction into your facilities, I disagree with your recommendations regarding disinfectants. Ammonia is a not recommended as a disinfectant. Soap and water are excellent cleaning agents. Prior to disinfecting anything, surfaces must be cleaned and free of debris. Quaternary ammoniums, while widely available, are low-level disinfectants. Better would be bleach, virkon, or an activated hydrogen peroxide-based product.
I don't know what your background with tortoises or with disinfectants is, but some tortoise pathogens are not affected by bleach or peroxide. One example would be encysted reptile cryptosporidium. I don't know Vikron or how effective that would be against the known and unknown pathogens we are dealing with, but the exotic vets I've dealt with have universally recommended dilute ammonia over bleach for tortoise pathogens. I think bleach or peroxide would be an excellent choice for general disinfection of most bacteria, fungus or mold.

I'm no microbiologist, so I'll defer to someone with more experience in this area, but I thought it worthwhile to relate what I've learned from vets who are specifically researching and working with tortoise pathogens.
 

Blackdog1714

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If I were to do it I would certainly add a few minutes of UVC. No animals near it just the enclosure
 

JMM

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I don't know what your background with tortoises or with disinfectants is, but some tortoise pathogens are not affected by bleach or peroxide. One example would be encysted reptile cryptosporidium. I don't know Vikron or how effective that would be against the known and unknown pathogens we are dealing with, but the exotic vets I've dealt with have universally recommended dilute ammonia over bleach for tortoise pathogens. I think bleach or peroxide would be an excellent choice for general disinfection of most bacteria, fungus or mold.

I'm no microbiologist, so I'll defer to someone with more experience in this area, but I thought it worthwhile to relate what I've learned from vets who are specifically researching and working with tortoise pathogens.
Tom, you are correct that Cryptosporidium is not susceptible to bleach. The activated hydrogen peroxide products are however, effective and best of all is simply dessication. Cryptosporidium are waterborne organisms and thus need moisture to survive. Simply cleaning and letting things potentially contaminated with it (if really concerned add some UV as Blackdog suggested and/or heat) and you'll kill it. One concern would be items made of wood as residual moisture can remain and which disinfectants are difficult to get into. There is no real "universal" disinfectant. Bleach and chlorine dioxide are probably the closest available. One has to match the disinfectant (or physical means like heat or uv or autoclaving) with the type of surface or item and the organism(s) being targeted. Ammonia (not to be confused with quaternary ammonium products) while a good cleaner, unfortunately is not considered to have much in the way of disinfectant activity.
 

mastershake

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But regular peroxide is not over 7% which is whats needed or higher for crypto. 3% over the counter is not strong enough and most common people don't have great access to some of the higher % stuff. Here anything wood would be baked to be re used but with things like crypto or austwickia those go in the trash. Ammonia full strength when left to sit wet is effective against things like crypto and aust. I agree on the matching point but most people do not know how. Some quats are very much stronger then others and are much more effective. I recc that for most general things as long as u are using a strong one. Its easy to get and better then things like vinegar and citrus crap most people think is a good cleaner. The quat we use for "general" cleaning is designed for 99.999% of most things. is it THE best no. Do we use other stuff also yes of course. But I asked about it against say austwickia and I'm told by people that do this for a living in a lab day in and out its very effective. It does not kill everything out there but makes a good every day disinfectant imo. Otherwise straight ammonia is cheap and pretty effective again as a good general one. Bleach does not kill things nearly as well like coccidia and others. As u said it all depends. We can go on for hours lol.
 
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That’s exactly what happened to my tortoise... tried to rescue Julia a 3 year old sulcata and my Pirate is 5. Pirate got sick now and still try to figure out what he has. Only introduced em for a few times and my male tried to fight the female all the time and I separated em immediately in two separate enclosures. Learned the lesson the hard way before I came across this awesome forum. Definitely got some sorta bacterial infection or parasites.
 

JMM

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If you want to use a disinfectant (rather than drying +/- UV) against crypto you can obtain food grade hydrogen peroxide from Amazon (12%+). The minimum concentration of plain hydrogen peroxide needed for crypto is 6% with a contact time of 20 min. No fumes, no residue. While the EPA does not allow labeling of products against parasites such as crypto, activated or accelerated hydrogen peroxide products are what are recommended. Because these products typically contain an acid, lower concentrations of hydrogen peroxide are required. Some of these products, such as Rescue, are available on Amazon. Ammonia while recommended in the past, requires a contact time of >18 hours for crypto and creates noxious fumes.
 

Pastel Tortie

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I think this is worth mentioning here, because the situation happens often enough.

A keeper may get two baby tortoises from the same place at the same time, then later realize that they shouldn't be kept in pairs. Or they started out with more than two babies, but not all survived. At that point, the smartest and safest thing to do would be to set up ANOTHER enclosure, so each baby tortoise can have its own closed chamber. Or if the indoor enclosure is large enough, the keeper might be able to divide the enclosure to give each baby separate space.

However, sometimes the keeper decides to get an ADDITIONAL baby tortoise in hopes that a group will get along together in the same enclosure. If the keeper has enough space (indoors and outdoors) to accommodate a third tortoise, that may make sense long-term.

Problem is, that new (third) tortoise needs to be quarantined. So instead of needing TWO enclosures (to separate the pair), the keeper now needs THREE enclosures (to separate the pair and to keep the new tortoise quarantined AWAY from the others for several months). Most people don't want to do that. Some will disagree about the need for three enclosures. After all, the keeper probably wanted the new, third tortoise so they wouldn't need more than ONE enclosure. (And here I am saying they likely need THREE enclosures.)

Some keepers will TAKE the risk, with or without precautions, and immediately put the new, third tortoise in with the other two. Many won't realize it IS a risk.

If not all of the original babies survived, or if there were previous babies in the enclosure that didn't survive, keepers need to realize that there's potentially a disqease issue. Even if they didn't see any signs or symptoms back then.
 
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