[macgro7]

I dint drink, smoke or take any type of drugs. But... I must admit I do have an addiction - I love all (well, most) animals!

I do have dairy goats, rabbits, ducks, chickens and would never want to get rid of them!
I do love my garden - both vegetables and fruit trees but also ornamental trees and bonsai trees.

Before I got married, since I was maybe 11, I always kept indoor animals (for the first 17 years od my life we didn't have a garden).
I have had horned frog, royal python, tarantulas, corn snake, scorpion, African bullfrog. We have had aquariums for 3 generations - since my grandfather bought one for my dad and his brothers.

Unfortunately when I got married my wife (and mother in law) were against keeping snakes and anything alive at home. Fortunately she was happy with outdoor animals, and we live in  a house with a very large (for a city) garden.
However, since my eldest son is almost 7, and the other one 4, I started missing animals which can be seen at any time of day inside the house. I can't really make my children check on the chickens and goats in winter when it's cold and dark, when they are coming back late from school etc.

Anyway, I just bought a 200l fish tank, that I'm going to plan and do really nicely before I buy any fish. Also I really want to get a blue tongue skink lizard which grows up to around 50cm but it's very easy to feed and very easy to handle - and won't eat the kids lol

I'm gonna get some baby tarantulas - easiest pets ever. Live in room temperature, get fed only once a week, as adults once a fortnight.


Is anyone else as crazy as me? 

[Fleecewife]

I doubt it  .  I had a tortoise called Mercury as a child, but he ran away and got squashed.  When our children were young we had tropical fish, cold water fish in the pond, and stick insects.
I love tropical fish but I am currently banned from having any (by Mr F) so I get my fix when my younger son sends me video clips of his tank.  We have a large pond in this garden with 5 Koi in, which have survived our freezing winters for many years now. There is also a smaller pond with a selection of local fish like minnows in.   The danger to the Koi is that otters discover us but 
For the rest I'd rather leave the exotica in their natural environments and admire them on wildlife proggies on TV

[macgro7]

 

Always wanted to have a fish pond! My mums uncle had a large pond where he kept carps for eating. This isnquite popular in Poland actually.  Much more so than in the UK where most people only have little garden ponds - yet so beautiful!

[Fleecewife]

My younger son spends ages when he visits trying to persuade us to dig a really big pond for carp to eat, but if we do make a big pond it will be for wildlife to colonise.  I think it's the carp in our garden pond which are eating all the larvae and frog spawn, although the heron helps with that. We must have had dragon flies before as we once saw a dragon fly larva dragging a froglet across the pond to eat it.
On the recent not very inspiring online course I took they showed carp fishing in Zambia, which is apparently a new gambit to help provide more varied protein for people. Their ponds were huge and square, lined and full of lovely orange and golden carp - somehow I expected they would be brown ones.
You've plenty of time yet to build a big pond 

[Anke]

Why does it have to be an exotic or reptile? A "normal" cat and/or dog will not do? I am just thinking it is somehow wrong to keep tropical animals in flats in the UK, even if people can nowadays breed them here and it reduces the stress of transport over long distrances etc...

[macgro7]

Why does it have to be an exotic or reptile? A "normal" cat and/or dog will not do? I am just thinking it is somehow wrong to keep tropical animals in flats in the UK, even if people can nowadays breed them here and it reduces the stress of transport over long distrances etc...

Some people say the same about cats, dogs, sheep or cows 
It all depends from your view point!

Some reptiles/insects/spiders etc are much easier to take care of than dogs of cats. As I said spiders or snakes only need feeding once a fortnight and can live a comfortable life in room temperature (Some species) without any extra heating etc. They also don't smell or don't make any noise, any sound in fact.

Most of animals I have kept were "livestock", but realistically my goats and chickens are mostly expensive pets. They do need a lot of space, a lot of feeding. We do get eggs from them but it would be cheaper to buy them from a supermarket- but where would all the other benefits of having animals come from?

How else can we show our children where you get eggs from? Everyone on here knows benefits of having dogs or cats - they become almost like family members.

Unfortunately my wife would never allow a dog inside our house  therefore I'm looking at alternatives!


I have met a lot of "law obiding citizens", Middle age ladies, who buy knitting yarn from our shop, then I met them at the reptile shop buying frozen mice for their snakes! 

It's much more popular than we realise!

[Fleecewife]

Well all my life I've wanted a dragon, one I can ride on and of course talk to, with the added advantage of her speaking back  .  I don't know how 'native' they are to, well anywhere really, maybe Pern, or maybe Wales.


I understand why people keep 'exotic' pets but I lean towards Anke's viewpoint and question whether it's humane to keep them or not.  Perhaps it's the commercial trade aspect of the process, so the animal you keep is not one which has chosen to befriend you, which you have 'tamed'. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with keeping exotics because of the bad stories we hear of animals taken from the wild then mistreated by traders - mother great apes killed for instance so people can have 'surrogate children' in the form of the dead mother's traumatised baby.


However, surely there must be others here who keep more than the usual pets, or is Macgro all on his tod?

[macgro7]

Have you ever seen snake eggs?
Royal python, snake which weight around 2kg lays eggs size of duck eggs.
A clutch of 12ish - all at once, unlike birds that lay one a day! Amazing!