Moving to a New Home

[nickanthony]

Hello,

We've had our beardie, Ash for about 10 months now and we've lived in an apartment with his cage out in our living room the entire time. I take him out as much as possible and let him run around or hang out with us on the couch. Although, all he ever wants to do is go behind the TV and pass out there. I've always said from day one that if I get one of these little guys I'm going to treat him like a dog or cat as much as possible. I can't stand when people get pets like this and just leave them in the cage their entire lives.

So now we're broke as hell and can barely afford to pay our bills so we're moving in with my girlfriend's parents. Which is fine, they've got a big house and plenty of room and we'll have the entire upstairs to ourselves. The problem is now my girlfriend is pregnant and she's reading all kinds of things about diseases and stuff that lizards can pass on to small children in their poop. So now she wants to put his cage downstairs in another spare bedroom that they have. That doesn't sound too bad but nobody ever goes in there. He's used to being around people all the time and now he's going to be in a room by himself all day long and only see people when we feed him. Maybe it's weird but this is seriously killing me. I couldn't even sleep last night when I was thinking about it.

What should I do? On one hand, I feel like if you read enough, you'll find that anything and everything is harmful to small children so is this poop thing really a big deal. Should I put my foot down and put him upstairs with us where I want him? Or is this really dangerous for babies and I'm not taking it seriously enough? Maybe I'm overthinking the whole thing. Maybe he doesn't even want to be around us as much as he is. I really have no idea.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[CooperDragon]

When you have him out, you might want to set up a portable basking area for him to return to when he gets cold. I've found that they search a for a safe place to sleep when they get cold. With a basking lamp they learn to return to that to warm back up.

As far as spreading disease to infants goes, it's a real risk. Reptiles can carry salmonella which can be quite harmful if passed on to an infant. As long as you are careful about cleaning and sanitizing his cage, you clean and sanitize immediately after he poops, and you wash your hands well after handling him, the risk is probably quite minimal. General and common sense sanitization/cleanliness goes a long way as far as that goes. I don't think moving his enclosure will make a difference as the spread has more to do with physical contact with poop and contaminated surfaces. Just keep everything nice and clean, wash your hands regularly, and it isn't likely to be a big problem.

 

[HKzForDayz]

I second what cooper said. As long as she , or the baby when he is born does not contact the reptile or the reptiles enclosure/things the reptile has touched, the risk is probably minimal. As long as you become his sole handler for the meantime and are anal about washing/sanitizing after handling the reptile, I wouldn't worry about any kind of illness being passed on just from simply being in proximity to the enclosure.

 

[nickanthony]

Thanks for the replies. I guess the problem is that I like to let him out and run around the couch and bed or wherever he wants for the most part. With the poop being such a problem, I guess I'll have to limit his freedom. My girlfriend always thought his butt running around everywhere was a bit disgusting but I always looked at it like a cat or dog. They sit their dirty butts all over the place and nobody seems to care.