Quarantine

[Guest Netty]

I have seen this issue come up on a few boards and figured I would post MY views coming from what I know and have been there to deal with.

 

QUARANTINE:

 

What we do as pet owners IS NOT a true quarantine, if it were the animals would be kept in a COMPLETELY SEPARATE airspace from your home during this period to prevent anything from going airborne and infecting present animals.

 

What we do is a PARTIAL quarantine in which the animals are in the same airspace, you likely aren't stripping down clothes and going for a shower changing clothes, and different shoes when heading to a different cage EVERY time.

 

In TRUE quarantine cases you would be waiting a period of hours between cage visits as well as the above.

 

When you are in a home environment and you are bringing in a HEALTHY bird with a vet check etc. then there is NO REASON to keep it in lock down since all your vents and ducts all go through and interconnect making a tangled web of area that goes through you entire home making no where safe from airborne disease/infection.

 

Putting a bird in the "next room over" is like saying I'm holding a towel up between us I can't get your cold. It doesn't make sense.

 

Now as for the parasite factor etc. common sense should dictate that you should be washing/sanitizing your hands between handling the new bird and the original birds, dont feeed from the same dishes, don't allow contact between the birds, don't share toys etc until a full check for any parasites can be done and all come back clean.

 

When it is in the same air space it IS NOT a quarantine.

 

No matter what you do it doesn't stop bacteria and viruses from being transmitted through the air. Unless you change your clothes and shower and make sure you change your shoes(if you wear shoes in your house, I do at my moms she has chipboard flooring right now.. sliver heaven otherwise! O_o) etc. then you can still get contact transmission.

 

SO, unless you can provide a separate airspace and are willing to do 2-4 times the amount of laundry per week it's not a true quarantine it's just a cautious introductory phase.

 

In all reality a "true quarantine" can last for a couple of MONTHS depending on what you are looking for because some things may not show up for a couple months depending on when the bird contracted it and the exact lifecycle of the disease/infection.

 

All we do as pet owners is what is in our power, most people don't have a separate facility to house new birds until they are 100% sure they aren't carrying anything.

 

A good example of NO MATTER HOW CAREFUL S%^& STILL HITS THE FAN is the one rescue in Ontario here that works with rats(which i personally know and was there for support when this happened).

 

They do the separate room quarantine(well they did then now i'm not sure they still do or if they cycle them through a foster BUT anyways...) same house different room on a completely different side of the house. They washed hands, sanitized hands, used different bowls, no animal came into contact with ANY of the "quarantined rats" stuff dishes were done in different sinks and bleach was used to disinfect etc etc.

 

One rat came in harboring the SENDAI virus (HIGH MORTALITY RATE VIRUS!!)

All normal percautions were followed everyone seemed healthy as per normal everyone was vet checked etc.

No one suspected a thing. then wake up later that week....

WHOLE COLONY INFECTED.

 

Not just the rats in that room but every rat in the building. the one who came in carrying the virus died and was sent off for a pathology to figure out what was going on etc. Positive test for sendai came back. They lost OVER HALF of the rescues housed there (at that point there was around 45 rats total in the rescue)

 

Considering that there is a HUGE mortality rate with sendai they got lucky, this was one of the first sendai outbreaks in canada.

 

1 rat with a random disease quarantined the way that most people here do.

 

As you can see it is definitely NOT a true quarantine if it were the healthy animals NEVER would have come into ANY contact with the virus and the number of rats that died would have been greatly minimized.

 

Sendai is a rare virus in North America it is normally seen in Asia.

 

SO if I haven't got the point across yet:

IF THE NEW ANIMAL IS INSIDE YOUR HOME IT IS NOT A QUARANTINE.

 

You can take every per-caution in the world but unless you have a separate airspace if something gets airborne there is nothing you can do to stop it.

 

BOTTOM LINE:

IF ITS IN YOUR HOUSE IT IS NOT A QUARANTINE

IF AN ANIMAL IS INFECTED THERE IS STILL A HIGH CHANCE IT CAN BE PASSED THROUGH THE AIR.

 

 

Thank you and goodnight

 

-------

 

-end rant-

[MarcusCAG]

you likely aren't stripping down clothes and going for a shower changing clothes, and different shoes when heading to a different cage EVERY time.

 

Actually, when we brought our two most recent additions home, we did all of the above ^^ and it was maddening! Everything you posted about the same air space and whatnot is true, we had no place to keep them except in our house in another room; so technically it wasn't a true quarantine like would be desired/necessary had one of them actually been ill. Still, we did everything we could to keep whatever type of quarantine we had going, a quarantine. I actually started having problems with my feet because I was showering X-amount of times per day.

 

But thanks for all the reminders...

[Barbara2]

Even if you do quarantine, unless you have the avian vet do blood work you still may have an infected parrot. We got Neo from someone reputable, we took him to the vet and they did the swabs and declared him to be a healthy bird. If we had kept him quanantined for 90 days it still would not have been enough. He was in our house for over 240 before he died. I have had my other two parrots for 17 years so whatever Neo had had to have come with him. I'm taking the other two in for blood tests tomorrow.

[Ray P]

Some times you don`t have the the place to do a true quarantine but you do the best you can. I think every member here understands this and with vet checks to make sure your new bird is ok and your flock you have has had vet checks. This seams to work for most of us.

Also knowing were your bird is comming from is a help.(A one bird home that had no other birds and the bird was there for years) with vet check

[Guest Netty]

Yea i posted it because you would actually be surprised how many people think this is a "true quarantine".

 

I have seen it COUNTLESS times when thy think that putting the bird in a different room for 4 weeks is a quarantine... on about 5 different animal forums in the past week I have had to explain to people, no you still need to take it to a vet get testing etc etc to be sure and that if you want to be ultra sure (in the event of say a pet store bird, as most things there are airborne in nature) then bringing that bird into your house in general is a risk and likely to get your current animals sick.

[Morana]

I agree that people don't realize that it is not a complete quarantine when you keep new bird in a seperate room in the same house, but it is the best most people can manage. It is better than nothing. The alarming fact is the part that some people don't think they need to get their bird checked up, especially if they held their bird "quarantined" for some time. Tnx for bringing this up.

[Dave007]

The word **quarantine** as it's used on parrot boards describes all the necessary things that should be done when bringing new birds into a home that has other existing birds. The *bird quarantine* and the instructions that are given concerning separation of birds works quite well. All of the extremes you're referring to won't increase the chances of receiving a healthy bird nor will the bird get any healthier. Professional Bird quarantine deals with specific diseases that birds and only birds carry.

There's really not too much that a person needs to do with a new bird in order to spot any existing health issues. Many of those health issues will never be cured nor will they be spotted by vets.

Since you don't even have a grey, I would advise you to start studying the world of parrots, their diseases, what diseases are contagious, what diseases birds come in contact with. Find out about carriers.

 

***Now as for the parasite factor etc. common sense should dictate that you should be washing/sanitizing your hands between handling the new bird and the original birds, dont feeed from the same dishes, don't allow contact between the birds, don't share toys etc until a full check for any parasites can be done and all come back clean.****

 

This is what people do concerning * general quarantine** It's very basic common sense. That's why the birds are separated in the first place.---Find out about how many types of parasites a parrot can actually contract. I'll give you a clue. very few. Having parasites is not a disease because any flesh eating internal sicknesses will kill a baby bird very quickly. If the bird survives, the illness is considered external and that diagnosos needs very little time to show itself. Lice and sometimes ticks are the most common parasites that parrots can get and be be cleared up right away.

 

****When you are in a home environment and you are bringing in a HEALTHY bird with a vet check etc. then there is NO REASON to keep it in lock down since all your vents and ducts all go through and interconnect making a tangled web of area that goes through you entire home making no where safe from airborne disease/infection.*****

 

There's a parrot rule that no matter what kind of clean bill of health is given, separation is still necessary. Obviously, parrots who/ve been put into isolation haven't died from bad vents and ducts. Learn how resistant parrots are to airborne particles. They can get airborne nasal problems from other certain species but on average it's the grey that transmits the nasal problems to other species of parrots. Rats have their own immune system to disease but they do have disease just like woodchucks have. In the case of your rat experience, 1 foreign microbe got in and the immune system couldn't fight it off. Thus, the whole pack died. The same holds true for the 2005 Avian Flu. A so called disease free rat who bites a bird will cause serious ilness problems ( probably death) to the bird. A parrot who bites a rat won't pass on any illnesses. A parrot who bites a person won't pass on disease. A person who bites or sneezes or accidently spreads it's saliva on a parrot's face/tongue can sometimes cause illness.

Stop and think about all of your extremes that new bird owners are reading. Believe it or not, you're making them paranoid and that paranoia remains and only surfaces as people start talking about the fears much later on that theyv'e read about and then, it's up to the experienced people here to clear things up and calm people down ang believe me, there have been many paranoid people here and on other boards. We want people to enjoy their new family members, not scare them with info that may apply to other types of animals.

Parrots are much more resistant to health problems than domestic animals.

People here and on other boards have enough problems with new bird management and ownership and they don't need to hear about extremes that don't apply.

AND in case you don't know it, the most complete, intensive parrot *quarantine* is performed when persons have to leave their birds in quarantine from 60 to 90 days in different countries in order to get permission to cross the border into another country with their bird, including Canada.

And this isn't a rant

Edited August 18, 2011 by Dave007

[Morana]

Well, I can say it is important to hear both sides in order to learn, for we have our own brains to process, weigh and to find common sense. Also, I never saw this thread like something that could scare somebody but now I see the point. I saw/see this thread as a warning for people who stay to comfortable and lazy. And on that note, I'll be of reading about illnesses again.. Tnx to both:-) I love this forum

[carlsjr]

Good Post Dave.