A lot of different animals sometimes carry salmonella and other diseases, and that is why we should follow strict rules of hygiene when handling them and that includes hand washing before and after and between different animals. The reasons for not letting your tortoise roam around on your floors are not for your protection, but for the tortoise's, and there are many tragic stories of things including the poor tortoise's painful death, that prove over and over that a tortoise needs its own secure and suitable enclosure.
Bacteria from the tortoise is not even on my long list of reasons to not do this. As Tammy said, they find ways to kill themselves, get sick or injured. Its to cold on the floor, too slick, or if on carpet, the carpet fibers can harm them. They get kicked, stepped on, escape when a door is left open, get their heads smashed in door jambs, and they eat things that you didn't even know were there, like sewing pins, earrings, coins, screws or nail, dust bunnies, bits of foam or plastic, and anything else they happen across.
Tortoises can be injured easily if they roam the house. Tom says the carpets and vinyl floors are not good for tortoises' joints.
Unless the tortoise has its own, safe, perfectly equipped room
I've done that before. I call that a tortoise enclosure.Unless the tortoise has its own, safe, perfectly equipped room
Salmonella is everywhere. Yes, tortoises can have it and shed it. So can the chicken in your fridge, your cell phone or computer keyboard, dogs and cats. etc... We are all exposed to it every day. The idea is to minimize exposure with good hygiene. Both for us and for our tortoises. While I'm sure that if a person were to look hard enough, cases of transmission from a tortoise and resulting sickness surely must exist, it is exceedingly rare. With all the tortoise people I know and regularly associate with, I have never even heard of one case of salmonella poisoning. I think you are more likely to be struck by lighting or attacked by a shark.
