The importance of proper quarantine

Proper quarantine is extremely important when you have pet rats (or other pet rodents) but it is unfortunately something that a lot of people aren’t aware of when they get a new rat so we hope to shed some light on this subject.

Why are we quarantining rats and what are we looking for?

When quarantining rats, we are most concerned about airborne viruses that can easily kill your rats. The two that we are most concerned about are SV (Sendai Virus) and SDA (Sialodacryoadenitis virus or Rat Corona Virus). Both of these viruses are very contagious and can wipe out all of your existing rats one by one.

To read more about them and their symptoms, please visit the following links:
http://ratguide.com/health/viruses/sda.php
http://ratguide.com/health/viruses/sendai_virus_sv.php

Another reason why to quarantine is to look for ecto-parasites such as mites or lice. The new rats may not have any live critters on them but may be carrying the eggs. During quarantine these eggs will hatch and you will start to see signs the parasites. These can be easily treated with Revolution and generally won’t kill your rats but it is best to catch these before the ecto-parasites get passed on to your other rats.

To read more about lice and mites, please visit the following link:
http://ratguide.com/health/integumentary_skin/ecto-parasites.php

How do we properly quarantine rats?

When properly quarantining new rats, it must be done in a completely separate airspace. Having separate cages in two different corners of a room or down the hall is not good enough when it comes to airborne viruses. The virus simply spreads through the air either directly onto your existing rats or through a carrier such as yourself, your clothing, bedding etc. Best is to quarantine new rats in a completely separate building.

The minimum length recommended for quarantine is 2 weeks, but new recommendations go up to 4 weeks. At LMR we generally quarantine rats for a minimum of 3 weeks.

The 3 Hour Rule

The 3 Hour Rule is extremely important to know and should be kept up at any given time to ensure the safety of your rats. Because airborne viruses can be carried on clothing, nasal passages, bags of bedding, food etc. for up to three hours, you can carry the virus home to your rats just by visiting anyone with infected rats or rodents (or a pet store or shelter with infected rodents). So when visiting your new rat at the quarantine home, make sure to stay away from home for at least 3 hours if you have rats at home. We also recommend that when you come home after the 3 hours that you do a complete change of clothes and shower before you go and play with your rats.

Quarantine at Little Mischief Rescue

We are extremely blessed to have some wonderful quarantine foster homes available which don’t have any pet rodents of their own. So whenever we get in new rats, they first go to one of our quarantine foster homes for a minimum of 3 weeks to make sure that they are healthy. After their quarantine is over and they appear healthy, we often move the rats to one of our other foster homes that either have rats of their own or foster multiple groups of rats for us, freeing up our quarantine home to take in more that need to come into rescue.

Final words

Unfortunately, we can never be entirely sure that quarantine didn’t get broken - we can’t keep our rats in a bubble! We don’t know if the person in front of us on the bus hides a rat underneath his jacket or when hiking we might be steps away from a wild rat. If your rat gets sick he or she needs to see a vet, even if there is another rat at the clinic at the same time. But these are some very important steps that anyone can take to reduce the risks of exposing your rats to an airborne virus such as SDA or Sendai.