Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just read a few things about reptile handling being connected to salmonella invections in humans. Has anybody had an experience with this in boas? This is never mentioned in any care sheet I've seen. Is this just a "wild caught" problem?

dmac,
. Salmonella is a very common bacteria. It is present in the digestive tracts and skin of many living animals and in and on meat products. In small amounts it is not pathogenic to we humans or our pet snakes. If we or our snakes ingest a large enough amount of this bacteria or if we have it reproduce on a large scale in our digestive systems it can cause salmonella poisoning. In less serious cases this causes diarrhea but in more serious cases can cause inflammation of the intestinal lining and even spread into other body parts. Salmonella are able to reproduce to seriously large numbers in meat which is left for too long unrefrigerated. Snake keepers sometimes leave dead rodents with their snakes too long or thaw frozen rodents slowly at room temperature. Either of these practices can lead to rapid reproduction of Salmonella which can cause problems. We humans can also ingest salmonella either from the feces or the skin of our reptiles. We should wash our hands often when handling reptiles. Small children should not be allowed to play with reptiles without supervision and this is especially important when the reptile is an aquatic turtle because they seem to have higher loads of Salmonella and are also small enought that children can get them into their mouths. The CDC reports that there are 63,000 cases of herp keepers getting Salmonella poisoning from their reptiles each year. IMO this number is totally wrong and there are much much fewer cases than this.
Jeff.
ps, Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys (and all poultry for that matter) should be rapidly thawed rather than slow thawed at room temperature.

>>I just read a few things about reptile handling being connected to salmonella invections in humans. Has anybody had an experience with this in boas? This is never mentioned in any care sheet I've seen. Is this just a "wild caught" problem?

Wow! Thanks, Jeff! I feel much better now!

http://www.xmission.com/~gastown/herpmed/salm.htm

http://www.xmission.com/~gastown/herpmed/salmq.htm

This page has a bunch of very informatrive links.
http://www.xmission.com/~gastown/herpmed/med.htm
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Jared Douglas