Do you have an unorthodox pet?

For my son's birthday, we got him a Giant African Praying Mantis. It's not till next week, but the other half, being the dimwit that he is, ordered it far too early.
But it's cool, being a boy, my son absolutely loves creepy crawlies! Unfortunately, I'm not as fond, but in a bid for him not to get freaked out, I'm trying to tolerate them

What kinds of unusual pets do you guys have, if any? Or if you don't what would you like?

reply to post by Lulzaroonie


We had two chinchillas. Not really strange, but a lot of people have never heard of them. They were a blast, so cute and fun to watch but not very cuddly. They had both been abused and we took them in as a rescue.

Imagine my surprise when I was cooking supper and a baby chinchilla hopped out behind the fridge! They had two babies, which we gave to my sis-in-law. Those babies are very cuddly now that they are older.

I would think the praying mantis would make an awesome class pet. Can you post pics?

reply to post by smyleegrl


Aww chinchillas are cute! I bet surprise babies was fun!

After a bit of hunting about online (other half neglects to tell me anything these days! lol), it appears we have a Giant African praying mantis, roughly 5/6 moltings into it's life. I don't think the other half really looked into things, because these species require a little extra care than others, what with maintaining humidity for molting which is crucial, so I'm a little annoyed about that, but it's a sweet looking little thing. I don't have too good a picture of him right now, but we'll see what we can achieve




Right now it's about 1.5 inches, so I'm looking forward to taking the little man out to go and get his new pet some leaves and bits from the garden

Well that certainly is an unusual pet. they look so...alien. Cool though. What the hell do you feed it? A heat lamp and spraying the cage with water would help the humidity level.

reply to post by Night Star


Surprisingly, there is an awful lot you CAN'T feed it. We went into the garden thinking it would eat spiders and woodlice, but apparently they can bite (and the mantis is only small) so in the end we caught a fly and put it in with it. It has some small locusts coming today though, they're slow moving so it should be able to creep up on it and skewer it on its arms. They also eat tiny pieces of ham or chicken if you put it on a toothpick and wiggle it about like it's moving (they only eat live, moving prey) but I don't like the idea of feeding an insect processed food.

This is it in it's vivarium

We have a bit of a zoo in our home. We have nearly 200 chinchillas, a wallaby, and a prairie dog for the more unique pets. We also have a pineapple conure and four dogs. In the past we've had mallards too. They flew away before the start of winter though last year.

reply to post by smyleegrl


That's almost the story of how we got into breeding chinchillas. We bought two from a pet store and were told both were male. When we moved out of an apartment and into our house we bough two more, also having been told they were male. It wound up that we purchased two males and two females, so a few months later we had two litters of kits. We kept them, bought some from other breeders and bred our own. Right now we have about 130 chins in breeding, about thirty that are young and will go into breeding next year, and another twenty kits that we'll be selling.

We've quickly grown into one of the largest breeders in Michigan. We're also the largest in Michigan to breed for pet only, to my knowledge. We're definitely the largest near to the Metro Detroit area. It's pretty awesome and a very fun hobby/home business.

reply to post by cmdrkeenkid


When I worked in the pet industry, for a company that supplies pet stores with small mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, etc ( referred to as "exotics" in the industry - but really meaning "everything other than cats and dogs" ) I knew a pet store owner in Tennessee who was stuck with an entire room full of prairie dogs that he couldn't do anything with at all - and some agency ( I forget which ) actually checked on the animals monthly.

If memory serves it was because they can carry bubonic plague - though I may have the specific strain wrong.

At any rate, some laws prevented him from destroying them, other laws prevented him from selling them, and he got stuck with them simply because he bought a previously owned small pet store.

Odd, odd stuff.

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide


That's pretty crazy! I know a few years ago there was a ban on selling prairie dogs due to a monkey pox outbreak. That was maybe ten years ago though. My guess is that had something to do with it.

We bought ours in the spring of 2009, after the sales ban was lifted. We built him a pretty awesome cage with some four inch PVC tubes to simulate tunnels.

I have an awesome dog, he's a little weird (also smarter than me) but not unorthodox.

If I could have any pet I would want a pet crow. Love crows. WAY back in the day I new a guy who had raised up a baby crow. It would do it's own thing, but would come when he called and was very affectionate even with me after meeting it only once. The family left a window open and the crow would come and go as it pleased, very content to sit on a shoulder and get love. Always thought it was really cool.

I had two pet ferrets for awhile and learned a harsh lesson that might have a place in this thread. Exotics can be amazing pets - but they can be very, very expensive. Vets for exotics are harder to find and caring for a sick exotic is vastly more expensive than caring for a sick cat or dog.

Many exotics also tend to have predispositions towards genetic illnesses due to coming from initially small numbers of breeding stock.

I would recommend ferrets as pets to anyone in an instant. They are amazingly smart and affectionate animals - on par in loyalty and affection with dogs, but with even more diversity in personality (imo). Just know, before getting one ( or any exotic ), that the vet bills are going to be on par with human doctors bills. And it's a shock to find out that your sick animal needs thousands of dollars worth of tests before a treatment plan can even be decided upon or a diagnosis given.

~Heff

I have a pet rock that still lives in my closet. I used to find snails to try and make them pets, wed find them on the walls in the morning, I named them all Sylus and it didnt work out. So now im your basic cat, dog, chicken kinda gal.

I have two rabbits (sisters) and a cat. The cat thinks she's a rabbit or the rabbits think they are cats. All use the litter box and play with each other.

None of the three are of the jewish faith.

Is that considered unorthadox?

reply to post by beezzer


What about the cat? She got a sister? I'm, uh, asking for a friend.

Originally posted by Domo1
reply to post by beezzer

 

What about the cat? She got a sister? I'm, uh, asking for a friend.

Yes, but her sister is a loose, immoral kitteh who does nothing but lays around and wishes to be love-mauled. I'll try to hook up your "friend" with a nice librarian kitteh who is fixed.

reply to post by beezzer


Speaking from personal experience, the librarian is infinitely more dangerous, morally speaking, than the obviously morally lax one...

If Yoda were here he'd say "Behind repressed facades, found are truly freaky creatures... mmmmm"

Yup, and that Yoda, he knows his way around kittie morality... Guy was like 800 years old and stuff...

~Heff

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by beezzer

 

Speaking from personal experience, the librarian is infinitely more dangerous, morally speaking, than the obviously morally lax one...

If Yoda were here he'd say "Behind repressed facades, found are truly freaky creatures... mmmmm"

Yup, and that Yoda, he knows his way around kittie morality... Guy was like 800 years old and stuff...

~Heff

So I don't have to caution you about paper cuts, then.

*ouch*

Originally posted by Hefficide
Exotics can be amazing pets - but they can be very, very expensive. Vets for exotics are harder to find and caring for a sick exotic is vastly more expensive than caring for a sick cat or dog.

Many exotics also tend to have predispositions towards genetic illnesses due to coming from initially small numbers of breeding stock.

Just know, before getting one ( or any exotic ), that the vet bills are going to be on par with human doctors bills. And it's a shock to find out that your sick animal needs thousands of dollars worth of tests before a treatment plan can even be decided upon or a diagnosis given.

I couldn't agree with your more. That is always the biggest shock. I remember the first time we had an ill chinchilla. It set us back almost $600! Luckily, with having so many now, the vet now gives us medical supplies at cost and trained us on how to do some of the simpler things ourselves. We refer a lot of our customers her way, so it's a pretty symbiotic relationship now. The only thing we're unable to do ourselves is any sort of surgeries or diagnoses for serious ailments.

Well, how about synchronicity... We had an eight week old chin develop and eye infection that we weren't able to clear up on our own. Today's visit only set us back $140, which really isn't bad.