From the Editor

Welcome to the Winter 2004 issue of CritterNews from ExoticHobbyist.com! We'd like to wish all of you a very happy Holiday Season and New Year.

Holistic care for dogs and cats is sweeping the world. Natural diets, alternative veterinary medicine, and more are increasingly common for family pets. What about for ferrets? Vet tech Nancy Campbell, our own PHValkyrie, is the owner of the Natural Ferrets email list as well as a ferret lover and owner. She has been studying natural pet care for over twenty years, and is a registered veterinary technician. Two years ago, Nancy started a Holistic Ferret Care Chat on the ExoticHobbyist website, but it's been on hiatus for a few months. We're happy to report that as of this month, it's back, on a new night and time! Holistic Ferret Care Chat is every Sunday evening at 9 PM Eastern in the Exotic Pet chat room. For more information or to sign up for a free weekly email reminder of the chat, visit the Natural Ferret Care Center.

The lines at the bookstore getting you down? Don't have time to drive to the bookstore? Then check out the ExoticHobbyist.com.com Bookstore! There is a wide variety of books to chose from and even calendars and magazines.

What's more, we have a new, free email newsletter all about books.

To sign up for this free newsletter, called PetTales, go to:

PetTales

Have a great New Year, and we hope you'll visit our chats (the weekly schedule is at the end of this newsletter) and our message boards! See you online!

Seventh Annual Chat Week: Who Would YOU Like to See?

The Seventh Annual Chat Week on ExoticHobbyist.com will be held a bit later in the winter than in previous years, from February 27-March 5, 2005, in order to allow our staff, users, and guests to spend the holidays with their family. We are already building our lineup of guests, but would love to hear your suggestions. If you would like to be a guest, or know of someone you'd like to see as a guest, or even a topic or subject you'd like to see covered during chat week, please use this link to let us know:

Contact PHChristy

Please be sure to give contact information for a guest you are suggesting, if possible.

As we confirm dates and add guests, the complete schedule for Chat Week 7 will appear on our main Chat Week page, with more complete site-specific schedules appearing at the links to the right. This page will also include a list of confirmed guests who are not yet scheduled for a specific date and time, as well as directions on how to attend the chat and where to find more complete information.

Hedgehog Treats
By PHQuills

Treats are a very good bonus to your hedgehog's diet. They serve two main purposes. First, they add variety to the diet. A highly nutritious diet is very important, but same old, same old can get very boring. Adding variety to the diet by way of treats can help increase hedgehogs' food consumption, activity levels, and sociability. As well, it can be a nutritional benefit, depending on the quality of the treats provided.

There is no set "right" treat for hedgehogs. There is rather, a set of guidelines that you can examine food choices by to determine whether they should play a part in the treat roster.

Is the food nutritious? While a little bit of "junk food" is ok, it is strongly preferred that you choose treats that will provide some nutritional benefit over nutritionally empty fillers.

Is it safe? Sticky, very hard, or stringy foods are not a good idea for a hedgehog food, due to the potential for them to get lodged in the mouth or choked on. Some famous no-nos in this department are raisins, peanuts and many other nuts, raw carrots, and other similar items.

Is it unhealthy? Highly fatty or sugary treats are not good ideas, as well as anything that is spiced. Salt is to be avoided as well. These foods can cause intestinal upset, and in too large quantities, can cause nutritional imbalances or severe health problems.

If a food option conforms to these rules, then it is usually worth a try.

How to feed treats is something else that needs to be considered. Treats are NOT to be the majority of the diet. They should be offered in very small quantities, a few times per week. Daily is not necessary, and can be a less than ideal contribution to to the hedgehog's diet. One or two small pieces of a treat per serving is ideal. When you introduce a new treat, you should offer a very small amount for a few days before introducing any other new foods, to rule out any possible allergic reactions. This way, if there IS a negative reaction, you know exactly what caused it, and can make a note not to feed that food ever again.

Some commonly enjoyed food treats include cooked chicken, scrambled or boiled egg, other cooked meats, melons, strawberries, peaches, other soft fruits, peas, cooked carrots, green beans, cooked sweet potato, tomato, cottage cheese, yogurt, small peices of cheese, baby foods, baby turkey sticks, and more. Other treats can include wet cat foods, cat treats, ferret treats, and of course, BUGS!

Be aware that your hedgehog may be picky about what treats he prefers, so it may require trying small amounts of many different treats before you will find the ones that really make your hedgehog lick their lips. And what they don't like at one time can be offered again later, they may change their mind.

This article has been adapted from, and used with the permission of, Daisy Meadows Exotics. In the next issue: Insects as Part of a Hedgehog Diet

Can Your Pet Catch Your Cold?
By PHBunRab

Have you ever wondered whether your pet will get sick if you are sick? Or if you'll catch something from your pet? As winter comes along, many people wonder whether their pets can catch cold from the humans in the house. Most of the time, the answer is no. There are some exceptions, however. The fancy word for diseases that can be shared between species is "zoonotic," pronounced zoh-oh-not-ic. Please note that the information below is general, and if you have a specific illness, or your pet has a specific illness, you should always check with your pet's veterinarian and your doctor to find out whether there are any special precautions you should take.

Most virus diseases don't jump between species - any species. Not between humans and guinea pigs, not between cats and dogs, not between ferrets and humans. Each animal has a different body temperature, a different balance of chemicals in the bloodstream, different enzymes - and a virus that is happy at the 98.6° Fahrenheit (37° centigrade/celsius) body temperature of humans can't survive in the bloodstream of an animal whose body temperature is 101° and vice versa. This is also true of many parasites - for example, mites. Cat ear mites won't affect your rabbit; your hamster's mites won't jump onto you. (In any event, it would be more likely that your pet would catch something from you, than that you would catch something from your pet, unless your pet is a large animal that spends a lot of time outdoors but also gets handled closely a lot by you.)

In particular, people often asks veterinarians and other animal experts and assistance, "Can my pet catch my cold?" The answer is no. Colds are caused by two groups of viruses called coronavirus and rhinovirus (rhino means nose!), and these kinds of virii are species specific. While there are coronovirii that cause colds and other serious respiratory illnesses in guinea pigs, they are not the same ones that humans get, and likewise for rabbits, ferrets, sugar gliders, and all our other small pets. Pneumonia is another illness that is caused by a wide variety of germs, not just one kind, but once again, the virii or bacteria that may cause pneumonia in humans are not the same ones that cause pneumonia in animals.

As many of you know, influenza (the flu) has been known to pass from birds to humans, and from pigs to humans. The situations where this happens, however, are unusual circumstances: extremely crowded conditions, thousands of animals and people crammed together, people both inhaling air that has partical waste from the animals or birds and eating the meat of the animals or birds. Once the flu virus does jump species like that, it can then pass to other humans. In such cases, it may be wise to stay away from your pet bird or potbellied pig, or pet monkeys and apes - animals that either are closely related to us, share a lot of our body characteristics (as pigs do), or are closely related to the species the virus originated in.

There are some diseases that pass from animals to humans that are well known - psitticosis from birds in the parrot family, tularemia from rabbits. These diseases are not common, however, and if you have purchased or adopted a healthy pet from a reputable breeder or shelter, then you are very unlikely to ever be exposed to these diseases. Likewise, anthrax can pass between species, but it usually is found in livestock rather than in household pets. There are several other real baddies that you've heard of which are very dangerous to anyone or anything exposed to them, but are still rare: West Nile virus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, The Plague. If you or your pets have one of these, you have more problems than just worrying about zoonosis; you should be in contact with a hospital and with the CDC, and they will supply the information you need to know about contagion among your family and pets.

That leaves a few diseases which are zoonotic - they pass easily from humans to pets, and vice versa - and are also pretty common. Perhaps the best known of these are bordatella and conjunctivitis.

Bordatella is actually a group of bacteria, a genus, more than one species. Some bordatella species are more common in humans, others more common in animals. The bordatella group all cause coughs - whooping cough in humans, for example, and kennel cough in animals. Kennel cough passes very easily from one species of animal to another, and can jump to humans, although not often. If bordatella passes from a human to a pet, it usually causes much more serious illness in the pet, serious respiratory infections which can then lead to pneumonia.

Conjunctivitis is commonly known as "pink eye." Parents of children know how easily pink-eye can be passed around among a classroom of children; it can also be passed to animals from touch. If you or your child has pink-eye, don't handle your pets.

Tuberculosis can also pass between species. In the US, it is not too common, and most people have been vaccinated against it; if you are exposed to it, however, do not handle your pets until you are sure that you have not actually contracted the illness.

Last but not least among things that commonly pass between humans and animals, in both directions, are the various parasites that are not virii or bacteria, but larger things: lice, fleas, worms... In these cases, it's pretty obvious if you have them, or if your pet has them; either way, treat everybody and every pet in the house, along with carpets, bedding, and so on, because these pests will move around the whole household if not treated everywhere at once.

This list is not exhaustive, but it should help reassure the worried pet owner: if you have an ordinary cold, you will not pass it to your pets. If you have a more serious disease, check with your doctor and your vet. If your pet has a more serious disease, it is pretty unlikely that you will catch it from the pet, but always consult your vet and your doctor.

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