Chickens, children and hygiene

On the otherhand, or claw, you can't be too careful.  You should practise the strictest hygeine after your children have been handling poultry.  They live in a highly unwholesome environment and are always poking about in all sorts of dirty places where bacteria breeds rampant.  They carry numerous infections they can pass on.  So you should always disinfect your chickens after being handled by children.  There's no knowing what they might otherwise have picked up from your kids, Chicken Pox for example!

Seriously don't worry too much chickens pose very little health threat to people and generally the strains of infections chickens can get don't affect us and vice versa.  Chicken pox for example is nothing to do with chickens but called this as the rash it causes looks like plucked chicken skin.  It can't be passedon to chx.  However a well known exception is salmonella.  Handwashing after handling any animal is always advisable, the dog included but obviously in this case it would have to be paw washing.
HF