** 2 NEW FAMILY MEMBERS** pictures too

[All Creatures Great And Small]

I know better - usually I can resist the little faces in the glass cases, but this time - well, look at them!


And of course, you can't bring just one home, since the babies have to be segregated from our big boisterous adults, and they would need each other for company in their separate enclosure....just like when we bought Fred and Oscar together.
Ah well, what's 2 more when you already have 5 - they don't eat much or take up much room anyway -

[luckies4me]

Just curious but are your ratties being quarantined at all?

[Tina]

Congrats!! They are both so adorable!!

[Desert Arabian]

Originally posted by luckies4me
Just curious but are your ratties being quarantined at all?

Yes...it is noted in the post above yours.

since the babies have to be segregated from our big boisterous adults

They are in a 20 gallon tank...and will be in there for a couple of weeks. They haven't even seen the other rats through the glass. /

[luckies4me]

They aren't being quarantined ina seperate building? SDA and Sendai virus spread through air, so quarantine won't work unless it's a seperate building with a different air supply.

[Desert Arabian]

Ok...I'll go put them out in the shed.

Or maybe I can drop them off at our cottage (200 miles away). WAIT! The storage garage is closer, only up the road...I can take them there.

[Desert Arabian]

Just kidding, by the way

[luckies4me]

LOL I thought you were kidding, wouldn't do any good now anyways. *sigh*


Hey, go to this link:

It is a memorial as well as info on Sendai and SDA


rat viruses, why quarantine is important

[shais_mom]

Won't they freeze?
And if they are in a glass enclosure, isn't that the same as being a different building??

[Desert Arabian]

I guess not.....

[luckies4me]

Originally posted by shais_mom
Won't they freeze?
And if they are in a glass enclosure, isn't that the same as being a different building??

NO it is NOT the same. They need a different air supply. If they are in a tank, they still breath the same air as the others!


Please read the link I provided, which has a lot more info.

[luckies4me]

"Because these viruses can spread by aerosol, a separate cage or even a separate room in the house is not effective for quarentining."



another link



This link provides more info as well.

[Desert Arabian]

I'll get the newspaper out first thing tomorrow and look around for a duplex or apartment somewhere close. Maybe a pent-house in Florida, that sounds nice to me. Warm tropical air, 2,000 miles from my other rats-impossible to infect the big ones with cooties.

I'll have to see what mom thinks we should get.

[luckies4me]

Originally posted by YellowLabLover
I'll get the newspaper out first thing tomorrow and look around for a duplex or apartment somewhere close. Maybe a pent-house in Florida, that sounds nice to me. Warm tropical air, 2,000 miles from my other rats-impossible to infect the big ones with cooties.

I'll have to see what mom thinks we should get.

Why do you make fun of this? These viruses are deadly! They can kill all your rats in a matter of days.

You don't need another apartment, you can use a heated detached garage or have a friend quarantine for you. WOuldn't you HATE to kill all your rats because you failed to preperly qaurantine.

[All Creatures Great And Small]

Well, here we go again with the hysteria -

Luckies, you can't be serious about this quarantine business when it comes to 2 pet store rats in a single family home. They have already been exposed to the air in the fairly crappy pet store they came from, so they probably have any number of diseases already. Kind of like shutting the barn door after the horses get out. Fred and Oscar came from the same pet store, we kept them separated the same way, in the same room but in a different aquarium, and they have not infected or killed any other rats in the house - in fact, they were the lucky ones who DIDN'T get the pneumonia that the girls did. We don't have a heated attached garage; in a Wisconsin winter that would be nearly impossible as well as ridiculous - the garage would have to be insulated as thickly as the house to stay at 70 degrees, and the heating bills would be astronomical, unless you're suggesting they could get by in a 50 degree room. We'd just be exposing them to all the chemicals in the garage, as well as infected air from all the neighborhood squirrels and chipmunks, not to mention lowering their resistance to illnesses by exposing them to a drafty, stinky garage.

Oddly enough, we don't have friends who enjoy rats, especially to the point that they would be willing to take them on in their home. If we had friends who had rats, why would they want to take in our possibly diseased rats to breathe all over their rats, anyway? They're OUR pets, so they will live in OUR house, infested as it may be. We're not running a world-class breeding facility, just enjoying the company of a few pets that we wanted to rescue from a cruddy pet store.