# What are your quarantine practices?



## mouseling (Jan 10, 2010)

Hi there, I have been reading lots of threads on here and see many people mention the need to quarantine new stock, or ill stock.

Would you all mind posting (perhaps in bullet points) how you quarantine you mice.

I want to know when, why and how you quarantine.

This is not a new idea to me...being that I breed and show other animals, but knowing how massively important it it, I want to find out the best methods and I am sure you guys have the answers!

Thank you!


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## SarahY (Nov 6, 2008)

When I have a sick mouse I cull it immediately, hopefully before it spreads to other mice. If the mouse is particularly important to my plans, I'll put it in a small aquarium in another room and always handle/feed/clean out after I've done the others.

I very recently had an epidemic of respiratory illness. A lot of mice got it, but I didn't want to cull them all unless I really had to because I only have a small stud anyway, so I moved the best of my healthy stock to another room. I fed, watered and cleaned them out before the sick ones. In the end I had to cull 13 mice as they were just getting worse. I left it a few days before moving the others back in, but I have no mice showing any signs of illness now.

When I get new stock I set the quarantine tanks up in another room and keep them there for at least a week before moving them into the stud, and I sort them out immediately after doing my stud so that the smells and germs of my existing mice are on my hands. I think this helps them build up a bit of resistance before I move them in to the mouse room, and prevents 'new shed syndrome' because they are exposed to my other mice in a small way before being in with them all the time. Since I've been doing it this way I haven't lost any newcomers, but before I would lose at least half of them. It might just be coincidence though 

Sarah xxx


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## WillowDragon (Jan 7, 2009)

Depends what type of Illness as to what I do... If I have a mouse with the sniffles I generally treat then and there with medicine in the water bottle, this has worked for me so far.

With resp illness it has depended on what type and how severe... I recently had a case with one of my older girls having really rough breathing, so I brought her in the house and treated her and kept her away from the others until she seemed better. Others that have been very severe (generally overnight) I cull straight away, I have attempted to treat in the past and nothing worked and it just ended up with a long drawn out death for the animal and I swore I wouldn't let that happen again.

Newcomers are kept in the house for two weeks before getting moved up to the general population, I have had newcomers die, but they were all from the same breeder, so I'm guessing something in my mousery didn't agree with them.

Willow xx


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## Toast (Nov 11, 2009)

I have three cage set-ups. Only one is being used usually, but currently two are, and I usually put the ill mice or new mice in the free one for a week or two (depending on where I got them. The quarantine cage is in the basement in the sunniest part)) if they are new, or if they are ill, a week after they stop showing signs of the illness. I like my mice healthy and prefer not to cull them unless necessary. I give all my mice daily check-ups preformed by yours truelly, so I only look for illnesses since I am no vet. Some rough breathing I had, actually two days ago, I looked her over and it appeared that the other mouse in her cage had been eating all of the things to shave down the teeth instead of sharing. I gave her some nice big treats to shave down her teeth and then the hard breathing stopped.


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

Proper quarantine must be observed for any mouse to be shown or sold/traded at a show in the US. The length of time varies from club to club (from 3 weeks to 4 weeks to 5 weeks) but they must be in separate airspace, i.e. separate houses, not just different rooms in the same house. Many serious fancers have bought free-standing sheds or converted a detached garage to serve this purpose. This "no shared airspace" requirement is because deadly diseases like Sendai, Murine Hepatits, SDA, and others may travel in the vents of homes for short periods and reach mice who are a few rooms away. Quarantine also entails that no new rodents come into the airspace for that same amount of time. There is no real way to enforce this so we have to take members at their word. Of course if you don't have a separate house, another room is better than nothing at all and we tell people this.

While in QT all my mice get Baytril (a generalist antibiotic) and Iver-On (a generalist parasiticide), as a precautionary measure, if I think they need it. If they come from one of the 2 breeders I trade with often, they often get nothing or are not quarantined at all because I have known them a while and trust them fully. If they come from a show where there were lots of animals, they're quarantined no matter where they originally came from.

Once you get to the show or event, there is also an official health checker who does a mini-physical on every mouse present before it is allowed to enter. If that means 400 mice have to be looked at, so be it. I'm a health checker with one of the clubs I belong to. And mice are sometimes (though not often) turned away. The thing is, when one mouse is turned away, that person's entire stock cannot be shown or brought into the room.

Some say we're really paranoid about our quarantine and it's probably true but I've seen disastrous things happen and whole varieties vanish from the US in part at least because of failed quarantine.

Since I don't have a separate house in my apartment, I quarantine in my car. This can only be done when it's not too hot, of course.

Like Sarah, when I do have a sick mouse I almost always euthanize it immediately because it's just not worth losing my stock that I've worked so hard on by keeping a sick mouse around and letting it spread the disease to all the others.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

I cull all weak or ill animals.New stock gets treated for parasites and fungal diseases and I treat all animals that I pass on to other people before they collect them for the same things.I only put new stock in separate cages,not a separate place.It's rare that I get any new ones though.


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## mouseling (Jan 10, 2010)

Thank you all,

I here people's metion of hospital tubs???

Is this simply an isolation tub in another part of the shed or house?


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