Pets - have you had any unusual ones?

Always wanted a parrot, but felt the commitment was too great. Was almost tempted by a cockatoo in a pet shop [she was called Angel] but I resisted.

When I was a child and my father's school had a farm I adopted a calf from birth and she used to come when I called her. We've had the usual dogs and cats, guinea pigs and a rabbit which grew to enormous proportions - more like a hare. Luckily my friend took him over because he was difficult to cope with. My daughter had mice which my DH learned to sex very quickly!!!! Great G G G G G G Granddad mouse was 'treated' to a trip down the stairs courtesy of one of our cats but fortunately was rescued in the nick of time with no damage done. We've looked after a parrot for a colleague who learned a few new words [!!] by the time he was returned. He was a right pain - the parrot not the colleague! We've had stick insects and what I thought were privet seeds at the bottom of the tank turned out to be babies and they chewed their way out of the tank through the cut down tights I'd put over the tank and for months, maybe even a year, afterwards we were finding stick insects roaming around! They were an interesting experience rather than a 'pet'! Then there was a terrapin and my son used to keep tropical fish and even kept a sea fish tank once which is extremely difficult keeping the salt levels right. A good selection I think

Fabulous goldengirl. I have had two African grey parrots. The first I inherited from my elderly auntie and uncle, as I had looked after him (called Polly before he was sexed) several times. On one occasion, we were returning him to Wales and whilst travelling in the car my husband had to break quickly when a car in front stopped suddenly. We both shouted a selection of swear words, and looked round to see that Polly had fallen off his perch and the cage had slid forward on the seat. He was fine, though. A week or so later, we had a phone call to let us know the new words Polly had learned. There in the background you could hear 'f***ing hell, you idiot!'

Fortunately, Polly's vocabulary already including a phrase that he used, in my uncle's voice - 'ouch, you bugger!'

My son had piebald rats, white mice and 2 chickens as pets, in addition to the family pets - cats and dogs. The chickens were a school biology project: each child was given their own newly hatched chick to imprint on them, in order to learn about their life-processes etc. I believe it was also to show them what it's like to be a 'parent'. and put them off taking risks!! He ended up with two, because one lad locked his chick up in a locker - a teacher heard its squeaks, and decided James would be good 'parent' material! The birds followed him everywhere until they got big, and he found them both a good home on a smallholding, with the promise they'd never be Sunday dinner.

PS he's 32 now and no kids yet......

That reminds me of the wonderful documentary that was on last year about the man who became 'mother' to a family of wild turkeys.

My daughter had budgies. They were in an aviary outside our bedroom window! Noisy so and SOS. She learned about genetics from them.

When we lived in our old family house we had a pot-bellied pig called juicy lucy she was so house trained that she went in the same place in the huge garden every day,she lay in front of the fire and it was very difficult to move her,on many occassions she tried to get up the stairs and got stuck at the third one,she followed the dogs around the garden and came when you called her name,she was 9 yrs old when she died from a heart attack and was very sadly missed her snoring could be heard from her house at the bottom of the garden.Such fond memories a wonderful old girl.

Your Juicy Lucy sounds wonderful glamma. How sad that she dies. I think pigs are intelligent and affectionate. Lovely animals.

Carol I have your dream pet - or rather my son does. When he was studying endlessly for exams my son asked if, as an incentive, he could have a pet snake if he reached a certain exam grade. In spite of his father's protestations (he really hated snakes) I agreed. Son duly notched up a 93% grade average and we bought him a beautiful corn snake the size of a pencil. My husband actually thought the little creature so delightful that he now takes care of him when son is away at college; despite the fact that said snake is now over six feet long.

How fabulous ga. I would love to have watched the corn snake growing and shedding its skin. It must be an impressive creature.

He really is gorgeous, pretty much like this:www.captivebredreptileforums.co.uk/members/karidan/albums/corn-snakes/9404-merlin-male-hypo-corn-snake.png

ga My DH used to have a corn snake when he was a young boy he used to take it out with him and it used to go into the drop handlebars of his bike,its a good job nobody ever tried to take the bike they would have been in for a shock.

We`ve just had cats and dogs, I`ve always had a yen to keep rats, but hubby wouldn`t hear of it.

What a beautiful creature ga!

A few weeks ago my husband had him out of his case and the snake actually managed to thread himself into a belt loop on my husband's trousers; whist trying to extricate him we realised he'd actually got himself through a second loop too. It was so funny I wish I'd had the presence of mind to film it.

My daughter and I took my twin grandsons to a local children's farm early last summer and they had lots of pygmy piglets, lambs, rabbits etc to hold, plus the most beautiful 9 foot long python, with exquisite markings. My grandons were enthralled - allowed to stroke the python, but told not to stroke around its mouth - they were dying to see if it had fangs! If only people who are fearful of snakes could touch their beautiful skin and appreciate what special creatures they are.

We laughed when we went in the entrance and polite grandson said to the nonchalent girl dishing out tickets 'please may we see your piglets?' She muttered 'uh!'

Ever since watching the old Korda film of the Jungle Book as a child, I've been fascinated by cobra's! Although, I can't imagine living somewhere where poisonous snakes abound.

I love snakes, but wouldn`t want to keep them, they require much more special treatment than your ordinary pets.

Actually number, once the correct equipment has been bought corn snakes are really easy to care for. They need feeding only once a week/fortnight and cleaning out even less often than that. My son's gerbils took much more looking after. In addition to the usual pets we've also had (well, when I say 'we' I mean my sons) Rankins Dragons and a rather odd looking gecko named 'Gizmo'.

What`s a Rankins Dragon?

My children never had anything more exotic than gerbils - they kept getting their tales trapped in the living room door (don't ask!). My stepgrandson has a lizard, which he begged for until everyone in the family could stand it no longer. Yes, he would feed it, yes he would clean it out. That was before he developed an aversion to feeding live prey to the darn thing and it was left to my son to do it - problem is, the bigger they get, the bigger the hoppy things they eat have to be! And if the hoppy things get out of the tank, you are in deep wossname. When they go on holiday, it has to go to lizard boarding kennels (the shop where they bought it) but the last time, they were given the wrong lizard to bring home and it was a couple of days before anyone worked it out (least of all the boy!) and they had to take it back and get the right one! I don't suppose that when the boy (it's a petname, the same as it was with my son) goes to university in a year or so, he will be taking lizard with him.... Anyone fancy a lizard?

In some ways my flock of sheep (when I was with ex dh) were sort of pets, as in they all had names etc. but they were expected to earn their keep, so perhaps don't really count.

However we did hand rear a jackdaw fledgling, (eventually released) which was an interesting excercise!

I had a friend with a boa constrictor. I sometimes went to stay for a weekend and said friend would meet me at the station with Barbara draped around his neck like a scarf. I would quite often wake up during the night to find Barbara curled up in my bed – or even curled around me in my bed. I was really quite fond of her.

Here's a picture of a Rankins Dragon number, they're little lizards:
www.rankinsdragon.co.uk/feeding.html