Opinions on bringing your reptiles outside

[Pareeeee]

Originally Posted by Zoo Nanny

They are! With so much woodlands and wetlands on your property you must have quite a few flying about in the summer.
I love bats, can't find a cuter little face than flying foxes and other fruit bats. Some of the brown bats are pretty cute too.
To keep them as a pet you would need to have the rabies vaccine and then have the titers checked yearly. The vaccine doesn't always take and you don't know how long it will last for you. When I had my titer taken after a year it was 0, others I know are still going strong after 10 years. I think the gov is too fearful of people not following through with the vaccines and having an increase in rabies cases in people.

It's probably illegal here anyway, knowing Canadian laws. I'm lucky I can have my snakes...but bats would be such an adorable pet!

I was supposed to have the rabies shots years back when I worked at the vet clinic, but they never ordered them like they said they would...I did, however, have my tetanus renewed, THAT was the most painful need I have ever had.

I have never heard the word "titer" before, what does it mean?

[Zoo Nanny]

Titer refers to the immunity your body builds to the rabies virus once you've gotten the vaccine. In my case after receiving the vaccine my body fought off the vaccine leaving me with no immunity to rabies. The day I found out I had three bats crawling on me! My doctor wouldn't redo the vaccine because I have too many severe allergies and she was fearful of a possible reaction to it. It was a little scary because I had been bitten by two baby opossum during the year, the last bite only two weeks before.