A trip to a petting zoo or farm animal exhibit can be a fascinating outing for your child. Meeting and touching a goat, calf or rabbit is the kind of hands-on learning experience upon which small children thrive. Unfortunately, there can be a downside to these animal encounters. If you're not careful, your child could come home from a petting zoo with germs that can make her sick.

In the past few years, several outbreaks of serious illness have been associated with petting zoos and other exhibits where children come in direct contact with animals. In the year 2000, 51 people, most of them young children, became sick after touching animals at a farm exhibit in Pennsylvania; 16 of them had to be hospitalized. In Ontario in 1999, at least 159 people came down with diarrhea after touching goats at a petting zoo. In both of these instances, E. coli was identified as the cause of the illnesses. However, E. coli is not the only germ that can be spread by animals in petting zoos. Pigs, reptiles and birds (including chicks and ducklings), can carry Salmonella. A variety of animals, including cattle, deer and sheep, can carry the parasite Cryptosporidium. In rare cases, contact with petting zoo animals can even put people at risk for rabies. In 1996, about 400 people in New York State had to have shots to prevent rabies after coming in contact with a rabid goat at a local fair.

Does this mean that you should cross petting zoos off your list of family outings? Experts say no. They do advise, however, that you take precautions to minimize the risk that anyone in your family will get sick.

"Hand washing is the number one way to prevent illness," says Melanie Pien, owner of Pied Piper Pony Rides, a company that supplies pony rides and petting zoos for birthday parties and other special events in Fairfield County, Conn. and Westchester County, N.Y. Whenever Pien arranges a party, she puts a clause in the contract asking the client to make hand washing facilities available for the children after they come in contact with the animals and before they go on to any other activity. She also enforces hand washing rules for her own two children when they're around her animals.

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