Quote Originally Posted by mrkrec View Post
My girlfriend was sick all of last weekend, and we ended up at the emergency room on Tuesday. The results came back today that she has Salmonella, but she is feeling better..no more symptoms..

I have read about Snakes being carriers ..along with Dogs and Cats..we have all 3 pets in the house...I am just wondering, since we have only had Barry for 6 weeks or so..have their been cases of people picking this up from their snakes?..

I want to stress that i am NOT condeming Barry or snakes in general..I love him and the Snake world..We are just racking our brains trying to figure out how she may have picked it up..
Raw eggs. Chicken. Food. All of that is more likely than a reptile.

That first thread posted by Slim has a commenter talking about a couple of relatives getting sick from a friend's herp room, mentioning that the herper kept monitors as well as snakes.

What do monitors eat? Eggs. Raw meat.
What is a big potential carrier for salmonella? ...Hmmm...

Lastly, salmonella is carried through feces, in the intestinal tract. That's why eggs are such big carriers of the bug - they pass through the same exit as the poop does in chickens! So as long as you keep your cage(s) clean, and don't put poop in your mouth, or the snake (they do crawl through poop if it's in front of them), you're unlikely to catch salmonella from your reptiles.

Glad your girlfriend is feeling better!

-Jen