Goosemoose Pet Portal

Back with another quarantine question! :) There are two girlies, a mother and daughter, on Kijiji needing a home. It seems that they've never been exposed to other rats.. Good enough?

Old question
The best I can do for quarantine is the basement. I have a friend who would probably be willing to perform a 3 week quaratine but he owns a ferret, his brother owns a chinchilla, and they have a family dog. Would the ferret pose any problems? How about hamsters/gerbils/mice/etc?

Are we keeping the rat away from other rats or everything?

You would have to make sure that your friend's ferret doesn't come into any direct contact with the rats, because ferrets will kill a rat.  From what I understand, ideally you're trying to keep the new rats isolated for three weeks to allow enough time for any hidden illnesses to show up.  Once three weeks has gone by and there are no symptoms of illness, I think then you're safe to start introductions with your existing rats.

Deb

But the ferret or the chinchilla won't affect the quarantine process, right? There's nothing that can be transmitted between them?

I don't believe that ferrets or chinchillas can transmit anything to a rat.  Most of the diseases are pretty species specific, except for SDA or Sendai which can be transmitted from a mouse to a rat or vice versa I believe.

Deb

That's great to know, thanks. :D :cookie:

Hope you got your questions answered! I've got two youngin's currently in quarantine as well. I don't know of anyone else that I would trust to care for these sweeties, so they are being QT'ed in our garage room, which has been insulated, carpeted, etc. Even has it's own heat/air system, so it's very comfortable in there. This is my first rattie quarantine, and I'm believing for things to go well! Good luck to you as well, let us know how things go! :wave2:

To my knowledge, chins and degus etc can carry diseases as they are rodents (I will swear that my first foster-degu got my girls sick with  URI) but it's unlikely that a chin in the house will affect them, and unfortunately different species can carry things catchy to others and show no signs so quarantining other species can be useless.  Chins are a rodent, so I'm sure they can carry some disease, but I'm equally sure that the things they carry aren't the "can't be in the same air-space" thing.  My degus share playing equipment with my girls, which is why I think they got sick.  SDA is the main reason why you quarantine in different places, which I don't believe is carried by rodents in families other than muridae.   I'm not an expert though. I personally think the arrangements should be fine and would have no problems with doing that myself. 

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