Strollerderby

My 7 year old daughter has 2 pet rats and we have a standing rule that you have to wash your hands after handling then, giving them food or petting them.  They don't like to be out of their cage so they don't get handled very much but she likes to pet them and talk to them and it is her job to make sure they have food and to tell me when they need water.  

We're going to be hatching chicks as part of a community farm project, so it is good to know that salmonella is a risk, we'll be as vigilant with the chickies as we are with the rats.

How utterly amazing that for generations children survived living on farms and interacting with "exotic" animals as part of their daily lives -- without antibacterial soap/spray/suits, even!

These fear-mongering doctors should be pleased by today's news that animals are going extinct at a record pace.  Soon, the world will be utterly, perfectly sterile, and then our children will finally be "safe."

I don't think it's just a matter of protecting the kids, it's also about protecting the animals. I had a lot of friends growing up with stories about squeezing a hamster so hard it's eye popped out, to being so disgusted at a hamster for peeing on their hand that they threw it at a wall (and died). Under 5 is just too young to have that kind of physical power over something that you can so easily maim and kill.

As a former zookeeper and longtime exotic pet owner, I have to say that I feel this is just another in a long line of smears against small exotics in the home. You know what counts as exotic? Anything that's not a cat or a dog. Seriously. Banning exotics means no more hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, parakeets, finches, and fish. Really? Is that the bandwagon worth jumping aboard?

For all those kids who, for reasons of space, allergies, time, and/or other physical limitations can't have dogs or cats, pets of the "exotic" persuasion can be a wonderful means of connecting with nature and relieving stress, learning responsibility and developing a sense of their importance to the environment. Banning small animals from homes with children--or, as many legislators would do, altogether--would cause further disconnection of our kids from the natural world. You can bet I'm not letting my kid touch my small lizards anytime soon, but she loves to see them, and I'm sure lots of other kids can benefit from similar experience.

Thanks to Knitty and erni for pointing out additional issues relating to kids and animals. Honestly, you'd think we were a nation of idiots, having to be told as adults that handwashing's a necessity after touching ANYTHING unsanitary. And that goes for the cats and dogs, too. When I was pregnant and working at the zoo, it was the cats I couldn't keep working in my "delicate" condition--not the bats, the mongooses, the snakes, even the monkeys. Exotics (and livestock) themselves are no more inherently dangerous than cats or dogs.

Really? They have iguanas roaming in the classroom? Seems risky to me.

That said, I'd get my kids a rat (we've had them before, and they bite less frequently than hamsters do) or a hermit crab in a few years. They'd need to be careful with any pet. No lizards or turtles until they're old enough to not be putting their hands in their mouths, though.