The Importance of Quarantine: It is to the benefit of your rats to follow proper quarantine procedures regardless of where you purchase them. Quarantine is important anytime new rats are going to be brought into the same building as other rats/rodents. Quarantine should be practiced when new rats are coming into the home where there are pre-existing rats, before and after a show, or any situation where your rats come in contact with other rats. Rats are susceptible to several illnesses. Proper quarantine can keep your current rats safe, and will help you seek treatment for new rats more quickly through observation.   Basic Quarantine Procedures: Proper quarantine includes keeping the quarantined rats in a separate air space from any other rats/rodents for a minimum of three weeks. For rats that are taken to and from a show, this means your looking at a total of six weeks pre and post-show quarantine time. Keeping them in a separate room of the house is not going to be good enough. They will still be in the same air space and any possible airborne viruses will make it to the other rats in the home. Be sure to have a quarantine home set up before bringing home a new rat. A next door neighbor, friend, or relative may be able to help you out by providing their home as quarantine for three to six weeks. A three week quarantine is sufficient time for the longer incubation cycle of diseases and viruses such as SDA (Sialodacryoadenitis virus) and Sendai virus. Please note, the three week quarantine procedures apply to healthy looking rats only. For rats that already appear sick, treatment must be given. Once their treatments are complete and symptoms have subsided, it is then time to begin the three week quarantine. If after three weeks the new rats appear in great health and showing no signs of illness, they may then be brought into the home with other rats. There is another very important habit to practice in protecting your rats from airborne viruses. Much of this can be solved by purchasing your pet supplies through places that do not house rats, such as grocery stores, feed stores, and online pet supply stores. Whenever visiting pet stores, rescue shelters or even friends that have rats it is wise to give yourself three hours between leaving that place and going home. Airborne viruses can be carried home on your clothes, and on any products that are brought home from the above mentioned places. It takes three hours from time of contact with the virus to when it is no longer viable. So if you are going anywhere that houses rats be sure to plan to be out of the house for a while. This is not to imply that all rats have a contagious illness, but when it comes to the safety and well being of our pets isn't it worth the extra care and effort? Since there are no vaccines available for most types of small animals these quarantine tips can be applied to any small animals coming into the home.