JENNIFER HARRISON GOOD GAL!!!

I just realized it was a different JenH! Sorry!

Originally Posted by critical bill

I've met many Kuntz in my life but I think this one is the biggest of them all......

Chuck You are too damn funny.. Thanks brotha needed a good laugh tonight. Keep up the good work

Originally Posted by critical bill

I've met many Kuntz in my life but I think this one is the biggest of them all......

LOL! I guess it takes one to know one! hahahahahaha!

Originally Posted by Dr Owens

You know, while we're on the subject, let me bring up another rule of quarantine that I've never seen mentioned anywhere...

It's not uncommon for people to pay more attention to the new acquisitions in their collection simply due to the fact that the new animals are "new and exciting." This excitement can often work against good quarantine procedure. This occurs primarily because when they're going to perform routine maintenance, they tend to go to their "favorite" animals first. Also, when they're showing off their animals to a friend, they tend to go to these same animals first. However, this is exactly backwards of what they should be doing.

If you're performing routine maintenance on your animals, feeding them, or even just looking at them, then you need to go to the animals in quarantine LAST. Then, when you're done messing with the animals in quarantine, you can wash up, change clothes, etc. when you're finished. In fact, if you do it right, then you probably won't even have to go near your main collection until the next day, and by then you'll probably have showered as well (hopefully ).

This one simple procedural observation will do more to protect your main collection from the animals that you might have in quarantine than almost any other (except maybe hand washing).

I know that this sounds like complete common sense, but I have never seen anyone do it this way. Every time I have been touring someone else's collection, they always go to their newest animals first in order to show them off...it's human nature, but it's the exact opposite of what should be done if you want to maintain good quarantine precautions.


Hopefully, someone will find that useful...

It's really that rare to do it the proper way, Jay? I'm really astounded at this. Mike and I have always done things in a certain order, pretty much from day 1. Not because either of us are trained in anything particularily "medical" but...well...because it just made good common sense.

We've always just done it this way...

1. Established ball python collection first
2. Established boas and milksnake next
3. Snakes in QT last
4. Sit down, pour a coffee and wonder why in hell you have this many snakes!

Our QT is on another floor of the house, the snakes there have all their own equipment (big deal really...some tongs...prey containers...hand sanitizer, etc.). I store all their supplies (clean tubs ready for use, etc.) in a big walk-in upstairs not in our BP room downstairs. Nobody visiting gets to see or touch the snakes in QT, we don't even really encourage our children to go near those snakes - it's not like we don't have enough snakes they can mess with LOL. If another snake enters QT, then we reset the QT "clock" back to day 1 for every snake in there. Every snake goes to QT first. I don't care if you are God and you breed ball pythons for fun and profit, your snake is going into QT.

Once we learned of more about health issues with boas and pythons in mixed collections we permanently seperated them so they now exist in different rooms and are on different day handling times. We've been doing that seperation of species for a couple of years now.

We have a rule in this house and if you want to handle a snake, you follow it to the letter. You touch the snakes, you go scrub well afterwards.

I thought this stuff was typical? I figured it's just sensible and really it's not even a big hassle or brain surgery here - it's just routines. Stuff we do now without even thinking about it. I'm sort of floored to read that this isn't as typical as I figured it would be (okay so now I'm thinking I am as picky and anal and OCD as my husband says I am! LOL)

Originally Posted by frankykeno

It's really that rare to do it the proper way, Jay? I'm really astounded at this. Mike and I have always done things in a certain order, pretty much from day 1. Not because either of us are trained in anything particularily "medical" but...well...because it just made good common sense.

Well, as it has already been pointed out by someone else...common sense isn't always that "common."

Keep up the good practices.

I myself was/am kinda scared of this being the next super virus like IBD. I never tried to make it sound like I new anything about viral transmission. I posted my fears/concerns with breeding and selling animals that had been exposed to it(early in the thread,) and keeping and shipping them after the bird vaccine did not work and more animals got sick and died, more recently. I posted that I would like to hear what Dr.J or someone as smart as he had to say about the risk's from a more educated point of view(which does not include you Sammy.) When I posted that I did not understand how the transmission of an "airborne" virus could be basically impossible outside of low husbandry and quarantine standards, or that there was no risk in shipping or housing(in the same facility) infected animals along with healthy ones, I was called obtuse,(When I am actually very a'cute.)

Everything that needed to be said here has been said several times, and plenty of things that did not need to be said have also been said. I was not going to post in this thread anymore, unless something new came up.

However, I just wanted to say that I do not think Jen is planning on secretly breeding BP's. Not because she said so, but because of the fact that she destroyed animals that were just as high end as this G-Stripe(her Clown...) that were not sick, or at least did not appear to be, and the fact that she turned down the animals that were offered to her for free, to start over.
I personally wish Jen would have put down all of her animals, taken those offers and started over. Maybe because I am paranoid about some "super bug," but also because I do feel bad for what Jen went through.

Originally Posted by RJK890

I posted that I would like to hear what Dr.J or someone as smart as he had to say about the risk's from a more educated point of view(which does not include you Sammy.)

Well fine Robert, JUST FINE!!!

You can kiss that ShamWow I was going to get you for xmas good-bye now, PAL!!

Send it to me Sammy Those things are kewl..

It is a terrible thing that happened to Jennifer and her collection. But as someone else has already pointed out it does drive home what can happen if reasonable precautions are not taken when bringing a new snake into a collection and hopefully will henceforth serve as a reminder to people to quarantine new arrivals. And Dr Owens has outlined a reasonable routine to follow as well as quelling any hysteria that some may have felt concerning a "Black Plague".

Originally Posted by lanceheads

LOL! I guess it takes one to know one! hahahahahaha!

Last I heard you declared war on me and were coming to get me. Is this it? Did you and your posse get lost or run out of gas?

Still waiting......