Happy New Year and Happy Mousing Year.
I have recently purchased a new bird who has been bred in Europe. Much preparation has gone on prior to his arrival. He will be quarantined at my son’s house, i.e., a different airspace to my existing birds, and he will have feather and faecal samples sent off to a lab to test for serious avian disease before I mix him with my birds. It’s inconvenient and an extra cost but crucial.
This has put it uppermost in my mind that at our bigger shows stock is often exchanged from lines originating from outside of the fancy and sometimes outside the UK. Any responsible breeder should be quarantining these animals in a separate airspace to their own animals, and there should be no showing or selling on of this stock until a suitable time lapse has passed and the mice are breeding healthy litters.
Whilst discussing which tests to get done on my bird, it was mentioned that there has been a serious outbreak of Sendai in European rodents. Sendai is a very contagious flu-type virus and a real headache if you get it in your stock.
Personally, I would avoid mouseries with animals that have come from outside of the UK fancy for stock, and hope that those that do bring animals over respect other fanciers and properly quarantine new stock. The same applies to members obtaining overseas stock; quarantine UBMs. Better safe than sorry.