Your Opinions on Hygiene [after touching beardies]

[NegativeCreep]

My hands suffer from all the extra washing, too. Between animals and restroom breaks, we all wash up a lot - some more than others!
We do buy Dial soap in bulk and keep it in the 'reptile bathroom' (our spare bathroom) and I only buy antibacterial dish soap so that we can use it to wash our hands when in the living room/kitchen. And the germex.. yikes!
Not even the super-thick gold bond healing lotion can touch my dry skin! Oh well, I guess I'm scaley-er than my snakes!

 

[Pleaides]

Oh well, I guess I'm scaley-er than my snakes!

LOL my boyfriend keeps telling me i am scalier than my reptiles and because im always cold he always tells me to "go lay on your heat mat!", you see i have an electric blanket in the bed, haha. oh well..they always say owners are sometimes like their pets or is it pets are like their owners...

 

[sixxmum]

I don't wash my hands every time I touch the dragons. I did at first, because I have a highly suppressed immune system due to medications, but eventually I just relaxed. Of course, if there is any poo cleaning or cage cleaning going on, then I wash up right away

 

[fresnowitte]

Personally, I'm not worried about it, and I know that a lot of people think they carry "diseases" and "dangerous germs", but so do all animals, ourselves included.

Amen!
Pleeze I kiss my beardies daily does that sound like I'm worried. NOT! :lol:
I will even share pieces of fruit with my beardies allowing them to take a bites off of it and then I'll take a bite. However when it comes to poop.....well that's really common sense to wash hands after cleaning it up. I worry more about keeping my beardies and their enclosures clean then my hands after handling them. However if there is any new beardies in the house(quarantined) I will wash hands after handling as not to cross contaminate anyone... in case the new beardie has something that I'm not aware of so none of the others contract it.

Though I do have sanitizer that I carry with me in case someone else feels they need to wash their hands after they touch one of my beardies. But it's their call.....Now when we visit classrooms...then I have everyone use the sanitizer because I don't know if any of the children have compromised immune systems or not.

 

[zombies]

i werk in a hospital so washing my hands is a habbit!
when it comes to my beardies i usually wash before i handle them ..
after i place em back in the cage im not to worried bout my hands but ill normally wash em ..

kinda a clean freak anyway so my cage is always spotless n clean as can be ..
makes a happier dragon

 

[coachrachel]

I think most people that have lots of animals like I do are a little more relaxed when it comes to washing after touching. I don't always wash after putting Jarjar back in his viv but it depends on what I'm going to do afterwards. It's like on of the stores where we buy our baby chickens. They won't let you touch the chicks. Now my feelings on this is that I'm the one who will be handling them when I get them home so I should be able to pick up the ones I want and put them in my box to take to the check out. I understand why they don't want people to touch them but come on, I'm the one taking care of them so let me touch them, besides, I want to know if it's a hen or rooster before I get it home. I don't like surprises when I asked for hens and then get a box full of baby roosters.

 

[ghr15]

Am I the only one that wears latex gloves when cleaning a reptiles cage? I never really wash when I pick them up. I only wash my hands after going to the bathroom and before eating something.

I had one beardie that used to smell where I got him he was not kept well I don't think. After being with me for a year and stopping the feeding of live crickets the smell went away. Now if I feed him live bugs or anything he does not stink.

Also if I have to pick them up say they smeared them self in poo because they smeared it all over there cage I simply use gloves to pick them up when that happens. Do not need to wash my hands then since only thing I ended up touching was the inside of the gloves. But if it is just picking them up to have them out I do not bother washing my hands.

Not once have I gotten sick from that. Also I wear gloves handling the crickets and bugs since the bugs always spit and would poo on me every time I would grab them. Also beardies are far cleaner then insects.

 

[herpfreak]

Now when we visit classrooms...then I have everyone use the sanitizer because I don't know if any of the children have compromised immune systems or not.

Yes, I agree, I make all the kids who come to see the herps use hand sanitizer before and after handling. Whenever someone in my family has a babysitting job, I always take the kid to see the snake and the cold kids. It's so much easier to prove that reptiles are ok to kids than to adults.

 

[fresnowitte]

It's so much easier to prove that reptiles are ok to kids than to adults.

Isn't that the truth! :wink:

 

[Grixxly15]

Never once washed my hands after handling hunter. I keep hunter's enclosure clean and hunter stays clean. Honestly Hunter probably has less germs on his scales then what my hands do after school. I do sometimes wash my hands before handling hunter just in case I have some kind of chemical or something.

 

[Tigg]

Honestly I would be more worried about washing your hands BEFORE handling your dragon, In most cases WE can pass on more germs to them than they can to us. I usually just keep a small bottle of hand sanatizer by my BD's cage.

 

[herpfreak]

I agree. With all the stuff we pick up during the day... like on doorknobs. There are so many germs on doorknobs!


Aside from poo, the only other time I'm careful about hygiene with the kids is when I get cut. I get scratched by Budo and Ira all the time and I don't even notice, but if one of them breaks the skin (only Ira has ever made me bleed), even if it doesn't hurt at all, I wash it out really well and put a band-aid on...