Hedgehogs can be Hazardous to your Health
Hundreds of millions of legally and illegally imported exotic pets are flooding into the USA and Europe every year. A future exotic pet may be running around in an African desert one day and find itself transported across the world to some family’s living room in say, Denver, within a week. Often a lot of these pets do not go through any quarantine procedures and allowed into the country and our homes after cursory health screening. Many owners are unaware that their exotic pet may be hazardous for the healt of their families.
Zoonotic Diseases
Zoonotic diseases are those that can jump from animals to humans. In the USA today, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that zoonotic diseases are responsible for 75% of all emerging infectious diseases.
Below are only some of the germs and diseases your hedgehog could infect you with.
A recent CDC report lists a scary number of confirmed and potential zoonotic diseases that pet and wild hedgehogs can carry. The confirmed diseases include Salmonella, Yersina, pseudotubercolosis, Mycobacterium marinum, Herpesvirus including human herpes simplex and Rabies. The potential diseases they can carry include Yersina pestis (also responsible for Bubonic plague) and hemorrhagic fever.
Salmonella
Salmonella is normally contracted from contaminated food. However the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes that 5% of infections are caused by contact with exotic pets. For example they estimate that nearly eighty thousand Americans contract Salmonella from their pet reptiles every year.
In 1994 African Pygmy Hedgehogs were responsible for passing on a rare form of Salmonella (S. tilene), to a 10 month old girl who became the first ever confirmed case of this serotype in a human in the USA. Her family kept a herd of approximately 80 hedgehogs. Significantly the baby hadn’t ever touched the hedgehogs herself. A family member who had handled the hedgehogs passed the infection on to her. The same serotype was later diagnosed in many other cases.
Ringworm
Despite its name ringworm or Tinea is not a worm but is actually a fungal skin infection. One source of ringworm is known to be pet and wild hedgehogs. Over the past few months HedgehogsAsPets.com has been covering a story where three people were infected with ringworm by two hoglets bought from the same breeder.
The story becomes even more disconcerting when it transpires that the person in question had somehow evaded Britain’s stringent quarantine regulations and managed to import several hedgehogs directly into the UK from Germany. Hedgehogs imported into the UK would normally be required to spend 6 months in government approved facilities.
In this story the breeder claims that the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) put aside their normal procedures and permitted her to quarantine her new pets in her house, (which incidentally was already a veritable zoo containing snakes, lizards, rats, other hedgehogs and sugar gliders). Subsequently before it was learned that the German breeder’s herd was infected with ringworm, she had managed to spread the disease to the parents of the two hoglets that she later sold and infected three other people.
Along with the disease side of the story, it also exemplifies just what may occur when you purchase your pet from less than honest dealers or breeders. After six months, notwithstanding she has said she will refund part of their vet’s costs, she still hasn’t done so.
Reducing the risk of infection
To reduce the risk of infection simply go to this site and follow the advice they give there: http://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/browse_by_animal.htm.
Buying your pet from a reputable breeder rather than a pet store or pet distributor, should also provide you with more guarantees about where the animal came from.
Even though the real risk of being infected by your pet is relatively small, owners should keep it in mind when handling their pets. Follwing the advice on the CDC site will help you to reduce the risk of infection to a minimum.
Beginners Guide To Keeping Snakes
Luckily the overwhelming majority of the appropriate snakes one might decide to keep, eg: corn snakes, king snakes or milk snakes, need very little special treatment and shortly become awfully low maintenance captives.
Quiet, well-behaved, not requiring regular walks and almost scent-free while being peculiar and engaging, snakes can be a perfect pet for today’s ever-busy lifestyle.
Wooden cages should be avoided unless they’re treated in order to elude any spillage from the water bowl ( several snakes like to wash ) and ventilation must be good as moist cages regularly lead to peeling skins or respiratory issues. A length of about 30-45 cm is acceptable for a hatchling snake while an adult will need a length of 60-90 cm so it can stretch out.
The cage should be furnished with one of the reptile-safe substrates such as beech chippings or corn cob granules and should be placed 1/3 – 1/2 over a safe, specially-sold, low-wattage heat mat to gently warm the substrate for the snake. These cost just cents to run every day and generate a restful background heat for your pet.
This temperature should be maintained at one end of the cage across the day though this can drop by a few degrees at night without worry of danger to your pet. If employing a bulb a thermostat is advocated to permit you to accurately control the temperature and stop the cage overheating.
A hide should be included as snakes are commonly quite reclusive and like to cover away for most of the day, showing themselves early in the morning and later in the evening.
This should be a specially-sold reptile hide but I simply employ a box – like an old cereal box – as they are free and simply replaced when they are getting filthy.
As you can see keeping the smaller, more docile snakes doesn’t have to mean bankruptcy, nor do you these days need to “make do” with unacceptable products. Corporations like ZooMed make top of the range, expert hardware for just this purpose, and make it available for a really reasonable cost.
Are You Thinking Of Getting An Exotic Pet?
Most families at some time decide to introduce a pet or animal to their family home at some time in their lives. It is intensely necessary to do plenty of study on exotic pets before making a decision what sort you would like. You’ll be able to find masses of info on the web simply type in the animal you are look for and read as much as you can to work out if this animal suits you.
You may visit your local library and borrow books on exotic pets. It could be useful to visit some pet shops to find counsel about exotic pets, confirm you are mindful of all the special needs they need.
What kind of housing do they need, including the size and shape? What kind of food do they eat and how frequently should they be fed? Are they susceptible to any sort of sicknesses or issues you must look out for? Do they need any special kit like a UV light or heat mat?
Do you require any kind of permit to own this kind of animal? If you have youngsters it could be worth finding out how much your exotic pet likes to be interacted with.
If you have selected an animal that does not like to be handled will your folks be cheerful with a pet that can only be looked at and not touched? If you have other pets already you’ll need to grasp if the new addition will upset your present animals and how they’ll get along. You may wish to set up alternative measures if they have to be kept well away from one another.
