Farm Animals

[Cooley]

Took my children to the farm today. They had a great time. Stroked and fed animals. Held a lamb each etc.
I must admit I am a germaphobe but I try my best not to let it affect my children. But this farm trip has sent me spiralling with anxiety.
My Daughter got sneezed on by a cow - yuk!! Actual cow spit/snot went on her :(
And I caught both the children at some point with their hands in or near their mouths and touching their faces before washing their hands! So now I’m scared they’ve both picked up some kind of disease. Should I be this concerned? Has this happened to anyone else’s children before? What diseases could they have been exposed to by the animals?
Any help/advice is appreciated :) xxx

you’ve had a lovely day out

don’t spoil it for yourself by worrying about this

in answer to your question…. nothing so relax

they will be fine.
even if they come down with a cold after a farm visit they will be fine.

zoonotic disease (illness that spreads from animal to human) is really rare.

A more positive angle is that children who grow up on farms and are therefore exposed to more bacteria/toxins etc grow up with fewer allergies and stronger immune systems

My three kids live on a farm and are permanently covered in mud/animal related filth and never have tummy bugs and are rarely ill.

There's studies to show that children that interact with the outdoors/animals have better immune systems. I really wouldn't worry about it OP, we work on the golden rule of wash your hands well before eating and don't put your fingers in your mouth or up your nose - good life lessons for kids generally!

FFS. Please don’t transfer your anxiety to
your kids.

It's fine.

It might help you to learn about germs. It's way more complicated than no germs = good. There are bacteria everywhere and lots of them are useful.

Our immune systems need to encounter bacteria to gain immunity and to keep them ticking over. There's a theory that if you don't encounter enough bacteria (like you'd find on a farm) then your immune system can just go into overdrive and attack itself, causing auto-immune disease.

Humans lived alongside animals for countless generations. It's fine. Put the bleach down.

Thank you all. There were signs literally all over the farm saying how must wash hands after handling animals. Then before I could get my children to the sinks they already were wiping their dirty hands on their faces and one of them had their hand in their mouth. It freaked me out as the signs wouldn’t be there for no reason. Hopefully all will be ok X

This. Strong immunity. As a child I used to love communing with the cattle, stroking them and scratching their ears, which they love and they’re very soothing animals.

The risk in this scenario is tummy bugs but if they washed their hands it'll be tiny.

That's to protect themselves from being sued if anyone did come down with something. It's highly unlikely though.

Think about it, though: if you could easily catch anything infectious from farm animals, there would never be a second generation of farmers, let alone an entire industry set up so small children could pat lambs.

Yeah, I've spent years volunteering at a place with a farm, with those signs appearing a few years ago. It's a risk assessment/insurance/health and safety regs tick box thing. Everyone who works or volunteers there (and our kids from babies upwards) probably wash our hands once a day and have plentiful animal shit, piss, snot, drool,hair etc etc on us. I spent my whole childhood covered in god knows what.

It's really a miniscule risk of a tummy bug (and more likely to affect germophobes who have reduced their immune systems Or those with medically poor immune systems, ).

Your kids will be fine. A few germs will be good for their immune systems.

There are studies showing that kids who grow up around animals have a stronger immune system.

I see it with my husband who has never suffered one tummy bug after my kids bringing everything home and me getting every single one of them. He was brought up on raw milk, sheep dogs in the house, shoveling dung, milking cows and he has a stomach of steel to show for it.

they’ll be the better for it.