Ummm should I worry about disease

[rhsm]

Hello all I just wanted to run this past you guys.
My friend emailed me and said that if I start raising rats that I had better be careful cause I could catch diseases that could kill me.

It hadn't even occured to me since so many people keep rats as pets and to breed as feeders so I checked and there is the rat bite fever and something else you can get from the multimamal (?) (AFS).
Not sure of anything else but I didn't look any futher either.

But anyway I just wanted to run this past you guys and get your take on it.

Thanks
rhsm

[frankykeno]

Well I've been keeping regular rats for over 4 years, ASF's for over a year. Far as I know I'm not dead yet.

All joking aside, if you use common sense you should be fine. Buy your breeding stock from a good source so you aren't bringing in nasty rats from a nasty rat breeder. Feed them well. Provide drinking/sipping water bottles not drinking bowls. Use rat safe bedding for them (no cedar or pine products). Clean them on an appropriate schedule for the size of enclosure and the number of animals it holds so your breeders/feeders aren't sitting on urine and feces soaked bedding. Provide reasonable ventilation both in the enclosures and the room that holds them. Remove and isolate any obviously ill rat from the general population. Wash your hands after you work with the rats. Just use basic good sense husbandry methods.

[littleindiangirl]

It is highly unlikely for any ASF's in America to carry lassa fever. Not unless they came into contact with infected fecal matter straight from Africa. It is one of the reasons ASF's were banned from importation into the US years ago.

I have also not heard of any zoonotic diseases to infect humans from their own collections of feeders or pets, though it is possible. These are more worrisome in third world countries or places that have big problems with wild rodent populations as pests.

All in all, buy from a good breeder.

[frankykeno]

You dead yet Connie? (sorry I couldn't resist)

[littleindiangirl]

You dead yet Connie? (sorry I couldn't resist)

Not yet!

[frankykeno]

Me neither though I think one of the evil ASF's gave me a look that could kill.

[rebeccabecca]

I got bit by one and it got a bit infected does that count?

[Clear]

:wave: not dead yet

[frankykeno]

I got bit by one and it got a bit infected does that count?

I'd rather be bit by a snake any day over a rat bite (well except our 9 foot snake that is LOL). They tend to fester if you don't get right in and do the hot water and soap thing. I always put on a bit of neosporin too just for good measure.

[771subliminal]

Far as I know I'm not dead yet.

Not yet!

:wave: not dead yet

sorry to tell you guys, but your dead, bp.net is heaven here