Exotic pets..have/had one? want one? know anyone with an exotic pet?
 

Does anyone own an exotic pet? When I say exotic, I'm speaking of:

Prairie Dogs
Tarantulas
Emperor Scorpions
Reptiles of any kind
Ferrets
Hedgehogs
Chinchillas (I want one of these, they are so cute) :p
Saltwater fish

just your not so everyday pet.

I currently have a Mexican redknee tarantula. I bought her when she was really tiny. Now she's gone through two molts and has gotten pretty big. Tarantulas are pretty shy, so she's never bitten me, and she seems to like being held. The problem I'm having is everytime my cat looks into her aquarium she starts to lick her chops.:rolleyes:

I like Pac Man frogs too, though I've never owned one of those. The only exotic pets I've owned other than tarantulas were a rat snake, and a ferret.

Oh, and I had a few hermit crabs when I was a kid. I don't know if that counts as exotic though.:)

a friend of mine has a hedgehog. He's cute and all, but I guess I want my pets to be soft. Petting a hedgehog wasn't all that much fun.

I had Freddy the Ferret until highschool. He was a white ferret who loved the sugar bowl and was absolutely adorable. He loved to dance around and play with his mouth open. It was cute.

My brother used to think he was attacking him...lol...maybe he was...ungrateful bastard.

He passed away about 15 years ago. R.I.P Freddy.

To me they just look so much larger in pictures than they actually are, until you see one in person, or see someone holding one in pictures.

I had

2 Burmese pythons (8 and 10 feet)

1 Ball python (6 feet)

2 Green iguanas ( 4 and 5 feet)

1 red tailed boa...died as a baby

I really want an albino Burmese python...but I need to make space and may have to wait til the dog goes...hehehe

Wow! These are all really cool snakes. I had a yellow rat snake. I bought him because they're regularly found close to human habitation, and they're really easy to take care of. They're also widely available from captive bred stocks. Corn snakes are really cool too. I like their size.

What is comical is when I walk my dog (he's a smallish 60lbs) everyone wants to run up and pet him

When I had my snake and walked with one of them around my neck, I could see people sometimes literally move from one side of teh street to the other....heh.

The dog will bite you long before the snake takes a care to do so....

I would be scared to visit DaemonSeid and cheerfulgreek.

lol I know what you mean. My cat has bitten me many times, but my tarantula never has. My cat has her little "I don't want to be held" mood swings.:rolleyes: My tarantula has gone from eating crickets to feeder mice, she's gotten that big. I still give her crickets occasionally, but I don't have to feed her as much when I give her the mice. When my friend comes over, he makes me put my spider in the closet. After she went through her first molt, he came over and thought I bought another spider. lol It was just the exoskeleton. It looks very similar to the actual spider. I thought that was hilarious.:p It's funny how people react to pets they're not familiar with.

You're right though. The dog will bite before the snake does.:)

Another funny thing...more guys I know are afraid of reptiles and spiders than they are of dogs...

lol

Some guys are afraid of mice and rats too.:rolleyes::)

I'll have to admit, I'm not a big fan of house spiders, because they do bite.:(

That was one other thing too...getting used to rats enough to feed the snakes...I did rabbits once...couldn't do it...I felt so guilty


Watching a snake feed is is one of the most highly educational things I had ever seen in life. For somehing that hardly ever moves, it strikes powerfully and quickly and then from there listening to bones being crushed (hope I'm not grossing anyone out, if so stop reading now) and ingesting is something that really never gets seen on 'nature shows.'

Movies like Anaconda and so forth have done them a serious injustice.

I also didn't realize untl after owning them that snakes have a very slooooooooow digestive process and they may only poop 3 to 4 times a year and when they let it out....the stench,

Not nearly as exotic as a reptile or hairy arachnid:


We have a Bengal. This is a cross-breed between an Asian Leopard Cat and a domestic tabby. She is about the size of a regular housecat but her paws are bigger and she is more agile, dextrous, and noisy than any of our other cats.

lol that was a National Geographic post.:p I never got a chance to see my rat snake feed, because when I was in highschool my mom made me get rid of him.:mad: What happened when you fed your snake the rabbit? I don't think I could have done that either. I have a hard enough time feeding my spider, mice. This is the first spider I've fed mice too. The others I've had were all males and never lived long enough to get big enough to eat mice. This is my 1st female. They live a long time. I watched her attack a mouse twice. Ever since then and one other time, I now give her the mouse and walk away. I can't watch. The squeaking (it was so loud) of the mouse just made me..:eek::( Then watching the end result of what the venom does is incredible. The mouse is still living, but the venom causes paralysis. It just makes it easier for the spider to eat without injury. Hours later, the mouse looks more like a mouse rug, similar to a bear skin rug. All of its insides are gone. Yeah, I know what you mean, I can't watch anymore. One time I fed her a mouse and the mouse fought back, I walked away though. I couldn't watch, but when I came back, it was pretty bad. Bad mistake on the mouse's part.

Ever watch piranha feed?

ETA: I wanted to add something to your earlier post. When people see me and I tell them I have a pet spider, they look at me, then picture the spider, then look at me again..like YOU? How? I've been told that I look like the kind of girl who's afraid of spiders. lol

One of my boyfriends in high school had a 4 ft iguana that we used to take on walks in a nearby park. The little kids got a kick out of him, their parents...not so much.

I had a turtle that one of my chapter sisters gave to me. However, I found out that turtles are harder to care for than I imagined (more or less a problem with all exotic pets), so I gave him to a local herpetologist. Speedy moved from a large tank into his own pond with two females as company, so I imagine he's pretty happy right now (although he should be hibernating).

I want a raccoon or a skunk as a pet.

Hedgie!
 

WHy I had issues with the rabbit?

Well when you feed it a mouse or a rat...you think "Eeeehh it's just a rodent." But the rabbit, "...well the rabbit didn't to anything to anybody...why would anyone wanna feed this cute lil' critter to a snake?"

And the squeaking too...heartbreaking but hey snake's gotta eat.

You see? LOL

I forgot I had Oscars (comes from a similar family as piranha <chiclids>)for a while too...and popping goldfish in the tank with it...why? LOL


Lesson, never get any unless you have a very large tank as multple Oscars tend to turn on each other and you aren't careful, you won't find the bodies.

That's really sad. I'm clueless as of why people buy animals they know they're not going to take care of.

lol Yeah, I get it now.:)

Oscars are so mean.

It's what they call that "Circle of life"

Hey..did you hear about the clown in NYC a few years ago that had a pet full grown tiger in his apt?

remember?

No, I've never heard about this story, but when I read it, I loled SO hard at these two statements.

This one:
Police talked with a neighbor who said the man in the apartment owned a tiger. A fourth-floor resident complained that urine had seeped through her ceiling from Yates' apartment, Kelly said.

and this one:
NEW YORK (CNN) -- A man who kept a 400- to 500-pound Bengal tiger and a 3-foot alligator as roommates in his Harlem apartment

lol lol

A couple I'm friends with used to have a chinchilla. She had the softest fur ever. :) She was a naughty little thing too - she ran under the refrigerator once and wouldn't come out. Sadly, she died a few months ago. My friends are talking about getting two more girls.

I've ALWAYS wanted a ferret, ever since I was in 6th grade and our class used to babysit the math teacher's ferret.

I have a chihuahua, I think that's close enough for right now.

You had crabs LOL!

I have two sugar gliders. (Pocket pets). They are adorable!!

lol

When I started the original post, I posted crabs, but I went back and added "hermit" because I thought someone would crack a joke like this one. It's a shame we have to think ahead before we click on the submit reply tab. lol :p:p

I want to domesticate giraffes. I would form the giraffe riders force, and ride my giraffe around, doing good deeds and such.

lol I have a mental picture of this. Hilarious.:p

I HATE spiders!! Especially big hairy ones....they give me the willies!

When I was in high school, my dad had a toad at his vet clinic that lived in an aquarium with water and ate mice....I'm not sure what kind of toad it was, but it was neat to see it jump at and attack the mice, because other than that, he barely moved. Dad also had a potbellied pig and a llama at the clinic.

When we were growing up, we raised a baby bull, and had a cute little pygmy goat....not really exotic, but different

You gotta be kidding. Do you know how much those things eat? The giraffe my chapter kept for initiation ate around 140lb of leaves and twigs every day. Even though we split the cost with the other Boston-area AEPhi chapters, it was still a hefty chunk of change.

(Uh, I shouldn't have said that. :p )

^^ Lol aephi alum. At least you didn't have to feed live mice to the chapter owl!

I haven't had any exotic pets, but I know a few people who have them. My step sister used to have ferrets. One of my friends just got a ball python, and it's pretty cool. I was really excited to hold it.

I actually have a weird fear of fish. I've owned fish before but I seriously can't watch them swim around while I'm eating. I'm also terrified of finding fish on the ground. I've seen it twice, and I almost cried last time. Weird, I know.

I didn't think about that.

Maybe I could have a pet gazelle.

No, way. I want a pet rhino. I guess that would eat a lot too...And not let me start a campfire.

In all seriousness though, I wouldn't mind having a pet ferret.

If the frog rarely moved, and it was eating mice, then it was probably a Pac Man frog. I want one of those. They are so cool.

I never understood why people buy African Baboon tarantulas. They're way too mean to be held, plus they hiss when they feel threatened. Beautiful spiders, but they make horrible pets. They're not very friendly at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1ooRP5Bkdc

Plus this guy keeps poking at his. If he has to poke at her, then he shouldn't have her as a pet.

Yayyy I'm hanging out with my friend who has the new snake later today! Can't wait to see him (oh yeah, and my friend...)

Unfortunately, they also have a Betta that seems to be put in different places in their house all the time. Eeeee!

you're right!
he looked kinda like this....

http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto...-main_Full.jpg

My brother has always had weird animals. I'm not sure the correct name of most of the snakes he's had, but he did have an albino snake like Britney Spears wore, and several more. He always felt bad when he'd stop to get mice for the smaller snakes, and they came in a little Chinese food take-out box that announced "I'm going to my new home!" on it.

I think my favorite of the exotic pets were his flying squirrels, Boris & Bullwinkle.

Okay, I can't even read this thread. After starting to read about CG's f'ing GIANT SPIDER, I don't even want to know. I am going to be having nightmares tonight about CG's pets coming to kill me ... and yes, I am that big of a baby. I didn't KNOW that the dang things MOLTED and I really didn't want to know. Euuuugh. I am seriously freaked out right now :eek::(

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas...

(it had to be said eventually)

I would LOVE to have a ferret. Id probably have to wait until the kitties go though, cant imagine that the kitties wouldnt try to do something to it. Only downside, ferrets stink. I have a friend that had one and it had its scent glands removed, and it STILL stank.

I would also LOVE a wolfdog. Wolf/dog hybrid. One of the lifeguards at my childhood summer camp had one and brought him in one day to give a talk about them. That was the freakin coolest thing I ever saw, and the wolfdog was SO SO friendly too.