Question:
I noted this topic in another thread & thought I'd comment:
quarantine is great in principle, but it can be impossible in practice. If you live in a bachelor or one bedroom w/ multi pets, you can have a situation where a true isolation from other species is impossible.
My new hedgie is on the oppsite side of my fridge from the gp's, & I am washing my hands like crazy & not letting the gp's on hedgie-touched surfaces etc.
Is this "proper" quarantine?
Also, I have wondered if there is *ever* a safe time to break quarantine. Sure most people say give it a month, but any animal could harbour ifections latently for longer. The British Gov't still has a 6 month or 1 year quarantine on small mammals coming into the UK I believe. Truthfully, there is *NEVER* a good time to break quarantine: an animal may seem healthy & only manifest illness later on.
The only other thing that I can see occurring is a sort of "cross-pollination" of microorganisms between species, so that when they finally are together, enough bacteria & viruses have been shared in minute amounts that major illness is unlikely.
I'd love to learn more about this topic.


Answer:
No, there really is never a safe time, after all, chins can hid listeria for up to 2 years. Trust me on that one.
I quarantine in some stacking cages I have around the corner from my chin room, and so far it is a safe place. The chins can't even see into the chin room, although, there is no door between the two rooms, there is a safe distance from the two.
I feel that 6 weeks is sufficient for most illnesses. A lot of illnesses take around 14 days to appear, but not all of them, just a good number of them.


Answer:
In the best case scenario, you would have a separate room for new animals...but that is not always possible. At the very least, the animals should not be allowed to have direct contact (or indirect through feces) and hand washing should occur between each animal. The reason that 4 weeks is usually recommended is because most OBVIOUS diseases will manifest in that time. Even just the stress of the move can allow parasites like giardia to go from being harmless to showing symptoms. As mentioned in the other thread, the gradual cross-contamination is another reason for quarantine.
The way I see it, it's easy enough to at least keep the animals apart and wash your hands between contact...why not just do it? It's not the most convenient practice but it is for the safety of your own pets as well as the new one(s).


Answer:
Thanks firefox & CC. Yes I am very religiously scrubbing my hands & keeping the gp's from having direct contact w/ Haley, I just felt that maybe because I don't have rooms to spare for 100% quarantine it wasn't good enough.
A lot of people don't seem to bother w/ any kind of quarantine, esp. where cats & dogs are concerned.


Answer:
If/when I bring another dog or cat into my house, they will definitely be quarantined. When we got Syd, I didn't know any better. However, she was "quarantined" to a different room for about 2 weeks because Max wanted to kill her. After our latest FeLV scare, I am not willing to take any chances.


Answer:
I got a new dog a little over a year ago, and didn't think to quarantine. But the second we got him out of the pound he went to the vet. I didn't have problems with him. I did lose a hamster though. I got one from the pet store as a buddy for the female I already had, and about 4 days later, Butterbean died. Ever since I've been quarantining animals, and they've got a vet check before they ever come through my front door.


Answer:
I use my bathroom as a quarentine room for my foster kittens... b/c its all tile its easy to disinfect as well. I live in a one-bedroom and when I have kitten/s in the bathroom, I put any other fosters (like my possibly pregnant guinea pig) in my bedroom away from my own animals that are in my livingroom. Works well for me! I've fostered well over 100 animals and never have my own pets caught anything.


Answer:
you need to quarantine animals if they arent routinely vaccinated like rats, hedgies, rabbits etc.
dogs, cats, ferrets can be vaccinated for a variety of dz so that certainly helps.
the reason is some species carry viruses that can be spread via aerosol so quarantining in the same house would not be sufficient.
you dont usually have to worry about cross species spread of most virus/bacteria/parasites(i said most).
rats for instance have a couple deadly viruses that you can even carry home on your clothes much less have another rat bring home.
keeping animals separate and washing hands and changing clothes will certainly help prevent spread of dz.