Rats, Ferrets, Snakes, other exotic animals.

[Omen]

Tribble is a gray fox. A little smaller than reds and more reclusive in the wild.

 

- Warning, I say a naughty word somewhere in the middle of the video. She picked up something plastic and was trying to eat it.

 

 

That was a dizzying amount of info. Jungles look so cool, and snakes have always interested me. Don't think i could handle something like a Jungle though.

 

 

I impulsively bought a leopard gecko from the Daytona reptile expo a few years ago. He is what i would term interactive, i guess. Constantly watching from his tank, pressing to the side if i approach, investigating new things.

Wow, she's a stunner! Super adorable too. The adults look magnificent, she'll turn out to be even more of a stunner I imagine.

 

Sorry for all the info, I got carried away. They do indeed look cool, being one of the more vibrantly coloured morelia/carpet pythons in Australia. Yeah, expected temperaments depend on species, though most of the time it comes down to how the snake is being handled. Although I've seen videos of some snakes who are downright nasty, regardless of how they're being handled.

 

Ah, I understand. Gizmo is interactive in the terms of investigating when out of his/her enclosure. When in the enclosure, Gizmo watches warily, not really moving unless hiding, changing hides or moving to what I've dubbed the toilet patch (s/he only seems to defecate on the substrate on the cool side, in a one foot square). The enclosure is in a quieter part of the house though, so Gizmo's only really used to me entering the room.

[SanguineWolf]

I don't have any exotic pets now, unless a retired racing greyhound counts. LOL!

 

But I have had exotics in the past. Most notably: African pygmy hedgehogs, degus, rats, guinea pigs, a chinchilla, a leopard gecko, dragonfish (violet goby), a brown skunk, and a wolf hybrid.

 

My next "exotic" purchase is going to be a pair of African Clawed Frogs. Been wanting them for a long time but hubby says we already have three cats and a dog and we don't need any more pets...I keep trying though!

[0023567467]

I once had a pet snake when I was 5 and a turtle. The snake was called Slytherin ( from harry potter) and the turtle was called Moppy.

 

The snake died because one day my mum put it out to have a bathe in the sun and then this massive crow came and started attacking it and then Slytherin died. The turtle died of old age

[Ælex]

I had a pet snake too, a long time ago. His name was Jimmy.

But then my family got a cat, and a few days later, the snake's tank was on the ground and Jimmy got the rough part of the shattered glass.

 

It's still unclear how our cat was able to move that tank.

[Ashdragon]

I have a corn snake and I'm going to get 2 rats once my dad builds the cage. I also had a hermit crab that bit the dust pretty quickly.

Edited June 13, 2013 by Ashdragon

[aussieJJDude]

I have two hermit crabs, Mush and Snape. I've had Mush for 8yrs!!!

Can we see pics of your hermie tank???

I might get some ideas when I rearrange the tank when all of them finish moulting...

[Shato]

I have two rats, both dumbo rats. The darker one is named Fievel and the other I have is a white and black hooded with a white stripe down his face that I call Badger because he looks like one and is kinda mean to his brother

[Draco Knight]

Wow, she's a stunner! Super adorable too. The adults look magnificent, she'll turn out to be even more of a stunner I imagine.

 

Sorry for all the info, I got carried away. They do indeed look cool, being one of the more vibrantly coloured morelia/carpet pythons in Australia. Yeah, expected temperaments depend on species, though most of the time it comes down to how the snake is being handled. Although I've seen videos of some snakes who are downright nasty, regardless of how they're being handled.

 

Ah, I understand. Gizmo is interactive in the terms of investigating when out of his/her enclosure. When in the enclosure, Gizmo watches warily, not really moving unless hiding, changing hides or moving to what I've dubbed the toilet patch (s/he only seems to defecate on the substrate on the cool side, in a one foot square). The enclosure is in a quieter part of the house though, so Gizmo's only really used to me entering the room.

Thank you, adult grays are quite lovely but I really wish they came in more colors. Reds have been bred in captivity for so long they have many different coat colors/patterns i can't name even half. Grays are all the same pretty salt/pepper and cream.

 

I can understand the amount of info, when people ask me specific questions about foxes i can get pretty verbose.

 

Are you really big into reptiles? Do you just want to own a few, or do you intend to breed them? What are some species you REALLY want?

 

Gizmo sounds cute, and i really think he's pretty!

 

and this time no head tilting involved, and I don't think i curse at all. I do pet her, so you can kind of compare to see how small she is(I have hands small enough to get the bottom chips from a Pringles can).

[Omen]

Thank you, adult grays are quite lovely but I really wish they came in more colors. Reds have been bred in captivity for so long they have many different coat colors/patterns i can't name even half. Grays are all the same pretty salt/pepper and cream.

 

I can understand the amount of info, when people ask me specific questions about foxes i can get pretty verbose.

 

Are you really big into reptiles? Do you just want to own a few, or do you intend to breed them? What are some species you REALLY want?

 

Gizmo sounds cute, and i really think he's pretty!

 

and this time no head tilting involved, and I don't think i curse at all. I do pet her, so you can kind of compare to see how small she is(I have hands small enough to get the bottom chips from a Pringles can).

I honestly though Tribble was larger than that, she's tiny! Good quality video from a phone, her colours show nicely. From the video, it seems like she has quite the character!

 

I have some questions. I'll never be able to own a fox here, so I'm going to ask about their care, and about Tribble.

Tribble seems to be a little less cautious in that video, playful even, has she settled in well?

Would care for a fox be comparable to animals such as a dog or cat?

Does a foxes diet require certain supplements, or are dietary needs met by a varied diet such as meats, greens and vegetables?

Are foxes omnivorous or carnivorous?

 

Over here colour morphs (mostly in snakes) are slowly developing. For comparison some species only have 3-4 possible variants while the Ball python over in the US (not sure if elsewhere), easily has up to 30 from what I've seen through videos. I never though of pattern/colour morphs in regards to mammals, I always thought it was random. The more you learn.

---

At the moment, keeping reptiles is only a hobby. However, my sister and her boyfriend have shown a deep interest in snakes. Though a group effort we do plan to breed Darwin carpet pythons down the track. Although, this isn't for another three years minimum, probably four. In order to even start, we'll need a female Darwin. Our goal is to obtain a female heterogeneous for albino Darwin python from a reputable breeder. The female will look like a normal Darwin, which honestly, they are beautiful in their own right, but posses the gene to pass down albinism to offspring. Paired with another het for albino, they'll produce 50% hets and 50% albinos, from what I understand of co-dominate genes. However we'll be breeding a het to an albino, which should produce 100% albinos. I am not absolutely certain of this however.

 

I've taken a great interest in skinks and I would like to own some of the smaller Australian species, on top of the various Blue tongue species. On the list are a few different species such as the Eastern water skink (Eulamprus quoyii), Shurbland Morethia skink (Morethia obscura), Boulenger's skink (Morethia boulengeri) and Copper tailed skinks (Ctenotus taeniolatus). The Eastern water skink can grow to 30cm on average while the rest are small skinks, growing under 20cm in size. The latter three species aren't as popular and harder to obtain, however they are easy to keep.

 

In the next few years I plan to obtain at least one of every Blue tongue species, with exception to the Indonesian and restricted species. I'll have to wait at least two years before being able to obtain the license necessary for the restricted species (Northern Blue tongue - Tiliqua scincoides imbratica, Western Blue tongue - Tiliqua occipitalis, Centralian Blue tongue - Tiliqua multifasciata). If I ever delved into breeding, I would probably choose to breed Eastern blue tongue skinks. These are extremely common here, and aren't profitable unless breeding the morphs, such as the hypermelanistic and albino. I would love to have these, but the beauty of a normal Eastern is what first piqued my interest in the idea of breeding them.

 

Other than skinks I'm looking at obtaining some geckos. Quite unsure on species right now, but the smooth knob tailed gecko is a favourite. Such a majestic looking creature.

 

Aside from skinks, snakes and geckos, I am negotiating obtaining a scorpion or two with my mother. I'd love to have a Rainforest scorpion (Liocheles waigiensis). They are venomous, but not highly so. Regardless, I surely don't want to be stung, so it will be a look but don't touch acquisition.

 

Gizmo sure is cute, full of personality too. Absolutely loves egg, specifically the yolk. Mealworms are preferred over wood roaches, and wood roaches are preferred over crickets. Earthworms only get eaten if given with food (must be chewy? ). I want to make a lizard play pen so bad, so Gizmo has somewhere safe to explore.

 

I like knowing about animals I guess, when I owned budgerigars in the past (one is now my Nanna's budgie) I got right into colour mutations, designing enclosures and planning on how I would breed them. I had three budgerigars, however the noise they produced was too much for my mother to agree to me breeding them. My favourite of the budgies was my sky blue Opaline Texas Clearbody, Angel. She was hand raised and quite tame, though escaped when I was changing her water, a few years ago. My second favourite budgie was Xena, a sky blue Cinnamon Opaline, she passed away suddenly earlier this year, she was a good bird. Last is George, a light green Spangle. I could never get him tame, even though he was the youngest budgie I had ever purchased. He will be 8 this year.

[ravenxsong]

Love that there's an exotic animal thread on here :> My partner and I actually breed/own birds and reptiles as a hobby so we have:

 

1 Lutino Indian Ringneck Parrot

6 Cockatiels (Normal Grey, Whiteface, Pearlpied, Pied, Whiteface Pied, Cinnamon)

1 Lutino Peachface/Fischers Hybrid Lovebird

1 Pied American Parakeet

1 Zebra Finch (the last of my breeding project with these guys)

1 Diamond Dove

6 Cornsnakes (Champagne, Butter, Snow, Blizzard, Lavamel, Sunglow)

5 Leopard Geckos (Tremper Albino, Normal, Super-hypo Tangerine, Blizzard, Albino Patternless Mack Snow)

1 Smoothie Bearded Dragon

2 Crested Geckos (Ink Spot, Tan)

1 Ornate Pacman Frog (I guess he's an amphibian but he's on the list anyway)

 

Aaaaaaaand I think I got 'em all.

[Draco Knight]

I honestly though Tribble was larger than that, she's tiny! Good quality video from a phone, her colours show nicely. From the video, it seems like she has quite the character!

 

Sorry I took so long responding, I have no time to get online recently(Tribble is sleeping, so I'm temporarily free).

 

She was actually quit a deal smaller than that when I got her, it's amazing how much she's grown. Yeah, she is definitely a card.

 

 

She has settled in very nicely, she prefers my dog though, so it's been hard splitting my time between them. I have to keep them separated for a few weeks, or she'll bond to my dog and not me.

 

I guess you could compare fox care to dog and cat care, just more. It takes a certain let live attitude, as they are destructive little thieves and it's pretty much impossible to train them not to be(you can mitigate, but not really stop it). They require a lot of time and patience, and more planning if you want to, say, go on vacation. You can't drop a fox off at a doggy daycare.

 

Diet is kind of up in the air, different owners feed different things. Foxes are omnivorous, grays more so than most. A high quality dog chow with a lot of taurine in it would probably suffice. Tribble currently gets a mix of Wellness wet puppy and kitten food and a bowl of fox formula(actual fox formula). Once she is fully weaned(about eight weeks old), she'll be on this diet: http://www.thepetfox.net/2010/08/fox-food-...overy-diet.html.

 

 

Here's a pretty good list of a lot of red color variations: http://thefriendlyfox.webs.com/color-variations Moon Glow and Cross Marble are my two favorites. If I ever went into reds, I'd definitely want one of those. If I ever came across a leucistic gray for sale, I think I'd get my USDA license and go into breeding(pipe dream). I've never heard of one cropping up, though.

 

 

Yeah, over here balls are always popping out such interesting morphs. I love watching hatching videos on Youtube.

 

Darwins are gorgeous! Especially those albinos! Snake breeding is so interesting, I really hope it works out for you guys. Do you think you guys would get serious to the point of trying to breed new morphs?

 

Skinks are interesting little creatures. I have them all around my house, they are so shiny and fast half the time i think they are snakes before my brains catches up. I really like the Copper tailed skink.

 

Those skink morphs are something else! I wish the albinos could keep their blue tongues, that would be a pretty stunning contrast.

 

The smooth knob looks cool, kind of remind me of young leopard geckos.

 

I've been trying to negotiate my way into some poison dart frogs, good luck with your scorpions. I'm a little wary of trying my hand at something as delicate as darts, but look at this! Highland Bronze.

 

What would a lizard play pen look like?

 

Birds have never been my forte, but my mom wants a conure so bad. Budgies have such cute faces, but they always struck me as look without touching pets. Huh, the more you know.

 

This took me over and hour to type up, as Tribble woke up about the half way mark.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Draco Knight

[twinmogs]

I wanna chinchilla. :3

[SanguineWolf]

I have two rats, both dumbo rats. The darker one is named Fievel and the other I have is a white and black hooded with a white stripe down his face that I call Badger because he looks like one and is kinda mean to his brother

Dumbo rats are freaking adorable! If one is showing aggression to the other you might try getting them neutered. I know it sounds weird but the loss of the extra testosterone could calm Badger down a bit.

[Omen]

No worries, with a discussion as in depth as this, waiting for a reply is well worth it. I also understand being busy, though it sounds like you're much busier than I am.

 

They grow so quick! Foxes sound like a handful to care for. Tribble has a great caretaker/owner, that's for sure!

 

Gizmo's grown at least 10cm/3.9in in length and close to double the weight in the time I've had him, and he's due for another shed any day (guessing he might shed tonight as he cleared up quite a bit since yesterday). I'm suspecting Gizmo is a male at the moment, as 'he's' showing behavioural signs (males tend to be shyer apparently). I won't know for certain until the little guy reaches maturity, where more expereince keepers can have a go at determining gender by body shape. Another method is to put two adult blueys together (with one preferably a known gender, such as female). Males will react while females will probably ignore each other.

 

The fox diet sounds super tasty, if it were cooked of course. Foxes need added taurine like cats do? That's interesting to know! Wow, that is a lot of fox morphs, some of those are stunning. The two morphs you mentioned are gorgeous. I like the coat of the Fire & Ice fox.

 

Those poison dart frogs look amazing, especially the one you posted. Bronze and blue go well together, more than I would have thought! Good luck with the negotiations! My mother is mainly cautious over the 'what if' I got stung prospect, and 'what if' they escaped. I've told her they're not going to be handled often, only for health checks and enclosure cleaning. She's already wary of the snakes, and spiders are out of the question regardless what type it is. I think I might be able to get the Flinders range or Rainforest scorpion, because they're not as venomous. I might just settle for Blueys for now, breeding season is almost upon us in Aus and youngsters will be ready by December.

 

I'd love to have leopard geckos here, they're cool critters. It's still on the table over whether or not I get a Gecko, however the bonus is that they don't require as much room as a Bluey. I still want to research them, if only for the information!

 

The design of the playpen I have in mind would be something either stationary or portable. Ideally, it will have a small pond or water source, hides, a substrate pit (think sandpit without actually using sand), and fake turf as the floor/substrate. If I end up putting this outside, I may look into real turf, but it has to be fertilizer free. In my head I've got this mini golf course type landscape with added hides, with a wall of some sort around it to stop escapes. It's impractical, so I'll settle for a substitute, as long as it's interesting to Gizmo, that's all that matters.

 

Thank you for the well wishes. At the moment, I don't think I will delve into breeding to discover new morphs, however if I happen to breed a new morph, the mode of inheritance will have to be proved, something I'd be willing to try. Carpets are nowhere near as diverse in morphs as the Ball pythons, but I think that's got more to do with less people breeding and more sub species to work with. My sisters albino just shed today, and his colours are slowly coming through. His father was a ripper with bright yellows, while his mother was a little more subtle, but still beautiful. We won't know for a while yet which parent he takes after, it's something I am looking forward to seeing!

[Sangre]

I had two rats before The one died from... Some kind of brain cancer I think o.O And the other one died a short while later because she missed her friend <3 Yes, rats can die of loneliness

 

I really want a snake though ^^/ I love them! I go to the reptile park in Oslo, Norway reglary to hold one of their snakes :3 And watch the feeding time x)

[SanguineWolf]

I had two rats before The one died from... Some kind of brain cancer I think o.O And the other one died a short while later because she missed her friend <3 Yes, rats can die of loneliness

Yes they do! I had the same thing go on with a pair we bought at the same time from the same pet store. They lived to be like 4-4 1/2 years old (ancient for a rat) and one morning I woke up to find the more outgoing girl couldn't move anymore. It may seem heartless but I ended up feeding her to my roommate's snake. I feel like I put her out of her misery instead of letting her suffer unable to move for who knows how much longer. I woke up to the other one dead in her cage a few days later. You could tell in the few days between that the second one was heartbroken.

[7Deadly$ins]

I would've just had it put down... live feeding still seems cruel to me.

[DaniBoo]

I would've just had it put down... live feeding still seems cruel to me.

Agreed. She must have been terrified while being eaten alive.

[Draco Knight]

No worries, with a discussion as in depth as this, waiting for a reply is well worth it. I also understand being busy, though it sounds like you're much busier than I am.

 

They grow so quick! Foxes sound like a handful to care for. Tribble has a great caretaker/owner, that's for sure!

 

Sorry about the awful formatting of my last reply, I made it via my phone and finally saw it on my laptop.

 

Tribble is certainly a handful(at the moment I'm trying to type this and prevent her from eating the cord to my $100 headphones- and now she's entertaining herself with toys, good). Thank you very much, such a compliment to my animal husbandry is nice to hear, especially from someone who obviously cares a great deal for the needs of their animals as well.

 

There's no way to determine gender for sure? I guess that's to be expected, though. I'm only %85 sure my Leo Darcy is male, he was sold as a male, but he was very young so it was the breeder's best guess. How long until Gizmo reaches maturity? Do you know about how large he will get?

 

I like the Fire and Ice as well. There is a super sweet woman on an exotic animal forum I like that has a Fire and Ice, and her fox is absolutely stunning.

 

Thanks for the luck wishes, I was about to abandon all hope with her, but I recently had to pay for a huge AC repair that her negligence created so...I might just get the frogs and go the 'ask forgiveness not permission route' and subtly mention that I did bail her out of a huge problem if she gets angry. I'm lucky that poison darts in captivity aren't poisonous, but what would you do if you got stung? Is it something that would require a hospital visit, extensive healing time? There are a few spider species I wanted, but ultimately I didn't get them because of potential health risks.

 

That playpen idea sounds really cool, even if it is not as extensive as your dream. Tribble has a 10x10x6 outdoor enclosure for once she reaches maturity, I'm hoping to extend it to 20x20 before she has to go out into it.

 

 

[Shato]

Dumbo rats are freaking adorable! If one is showing aggression to the other you might try getting them neutered. I know it sounds weird but the loss of the extra testosterone could calm Badger down a bit.

 

Yeah I know He's new to this cage and they're just establishing their dominance right now but yup I'd definitely get him neutered if it got worse. Just in case anyone wants to see what they look like Badger and Fievel

 

 

[dark_kitsune]

So we recently got a tarantula. It's a baby, still...but it's helping me get over my fear of spiders. They are really quite fascinating to watch

[Paddlefoot]

I have always wanted to own a snake, but my parents have unfortunately disagreed with me :') Also ferret would be nice, but the ones I would just LOVE to

have would be Indian flying fox and raven. Moose would also be extremely awesome since I love them ^^

[Draco Knight]

A video of Tribble being super cute.

 

 

Edit: Thinking about it...Tribble isn't an exotic pet, she's native wildlife.

Edited July 9, 2013 by Draco Knight

[Victini]

I don't have anything exotic (besides a few land snails, but those hardly count), but my mom's friend has a pet raccoon.

[LikeTwoPancakes]

I don't have anything exotic pets.

I really love snakes, though, my mom is afraid of them.