do you guys wash your hands after handling your snake

[EasternGirl]

Oh John...lol...

[Kantar]

I usually wash my hands before and after feeding. If I was just handing I don't

hand sanitizer destroys the skin on my hand. When I went to go buy a snake, I was forced to use that stuff, it was my first time using it so I didn't know, within hours my hands were destroyed. Cracks all through and bleeding and for a month afterward they nonstop hurt.

[ConcinusMan]

We are all glad no firearms were available.

Who needs 'em. There was enough shooting going on. From both ends.

[RedSidedSPR]

I never wash my hands i just never think about it... I'm not worried about MY health through my snakes so I'm not worrying about it. I do wash sometimes before handling them for THEIR health but only if they need washing...

Don't follow my example though if it's really a problem.

[infernalis]

Don't follow my example though if it's really a problem.

No worries Jesse.. I won't

[EasternGirl]

Who needs 'em. There was enough shooting going on. From both ends.

Ha ha ha ha...

[EasternGirl]

Yeah...I don't know...the people who don't wash their hands before or after handling the snakes... I just wouldn't recommend that. Some people are going to be naturally less susceptible to illness...but some people are going to be naturally more susceptible to illness and it's just better to be safe than sorry...especially if you do not know ahead of time if you are susceptible to salmonella. I certainly understand if hand sanitizer tears up your hands...good old fashioned soap and water is fine. I'm not telling anyone what to do of course...just my opinion.

[RedSidedSPR]

No worries Jesse.. I won't

I didn't know my healthy snakes posed a threat though so i'll start doing it.

If i remember.

[EasternGirl]

I think like Shannon and many people said the chances of getting Salmonella from a snake are much less than getting it from say...going out to eat at a restaurant and picking it up there. It's carried in the feces. But if your snake has just slithered through some feces and you handle your snake and then you go and touch food and transfer it to the food and the toxins get released like Richard was explaining a few posts back...you could actually get pretty sick...so it's just a good precaution.

[Stefan-A]

I think like Shannon and many people said the chances of getting Salmonella from a snake are much less than getting it from say...going out to eat at a restaurant and picking it up there.

I may be wrong, but I think that claim is based on statistics concerning what the source was in X number of cases where people contracted salmonella.

Statistics like that say absolutely nothing about which source is more likely to give you salmonella, because the number of people who own snakes is natually far lower than the number of people who go to restaurants and much lower than the number of restaurants and restaurant visits. So if in a fictive scenario 90% get it from restaurants and 10% from reptiles, that doesn't mean that you are less likely to get it from a reptile, than from a restaurant. If the percentage of people interacting with reptiles is low enough, reptiles may even be overrepresented in the statistics, at 10%.