It’s great to for your children to have contact with farms animals but there have been cases of illness associated with handling them. You can avoid this by:
- Ensuring you or your child don’t eat or drink in animal areas including the feed that is meant to be for the animals
- Washing your hands after touching farm animals and not touching your mouth before washing your hands. Use hand sanitizer if soap and water aren’t available
- Help young children to wash their hands and make sure they don’t suck their fingers, bite their nails and eat dirt while they are around farm animals
- Don’t bring children’s toys, cups, bottles, dummies or strollers into animal areas
- Don’t let young children under five handle live poultry, chicks or ducklings without supervision
Diseases that can be transmitted between humans and animals (zoonoses) are rare but you can find out more here
Find out more about Food safety and pets