Servals

Omg, I love servals! Do you have some pictures of your babies? I would love to see them! []They're my dream pet, for sure.

Although I would be cautious as people around here do not support exotic animal ownership.

I too would love to see pictures.  I have always loved the Serval and when I encounter a display of them at a zoo I could stand for hours watching just them.  They are beautiful cats and I would be very interested in what their personality is like and how they fit in a domesticated environment.

I'll post some pictures as soon as I can.[] I only own one now, my last died of an illness that affected his heart, he was older so it was best to let him go, with theo ther age problems he had been through.

I can understand many people being against exotic pet ownership, however I've dealt with the stereotypes and activists for years. The fact is, people are going to own these animals, there's no getting around it until laws are passed. I have permits allowing me to own exotic animals through work that I've done in the past. The Servals I've owned have been rescued from owners who kept them in small cages, or just not taken care of them at all.
However, even people who don't have the same background with the same permit as I do aren't all out to get some sort of macho image, or hurt wildlife, or anything like that. There are still many awesome owners who devote their lives to making their pets happy. Just wanted to throw that out there, I talk to quite a few serval owners whose cats are some of the most spoiled rotten brats you'll ever see, even moreso than most common domestic cats in the everyday household, if you can believe it. I know mine thinks he's a king; he is![]

As far as personality, they're a lot like a mix of cat and dog. They can be independent, but, they love to play fetch, swim, wrestle around. The thing to remember (with any exotic) is that they haven't been bred very long as domestic pets, so they have their instincts. I often come home to my boy on top of the fridge, or trying to figure out how to get into the meat freezer, so their instincts have modernized themselves a little (he's gotten in once so far!). We take him on walks on a lead, he has his own harness that he gets very excited about when he sees. He's even gone sledding and sleighing with us. It took us a while to break him out of his shell, since he was kept in small confines with little attention, but he was really easy to train.

Pictures!!!
 
They sound like a great animal. Thanks for rescuing them. I would love to have one too but realize they belong in the wild and only experienced people such as yourself should be rescuing them.
 
I come from an extremly small town and one time there was an ad for a LION in our paper, it was a cub but still..Some people dont have any common sense, I sure hope the Lion went to some good person who knew what they were doing and not some idiot who would confine it to a small cage...
 
 

I've only spoken to one person who had a lion. They had to adjust their entire lifestyle to the big guy, and have had some problems with his health because of where he came from. These animals are BEST in the wild, but since they can be kept as pets...they should only be kept by people who know what they are doing.

I've had a lot of experience with big cats, and their owners (good and bad). Some individuals can make the greatest companions, other just don't. They are very hard to predict as a whole.

Just seeing, you live in canada.. Which province? I pretty sure here in alberta they're illegal to own even with a permit.. even though I havent researched it as extensively. I love exotic felines, and would love to hear more about your babies, .. lynx and servals are my favourite small/medium exotic felines, not even going to get into how much I love tigers []. Do you have a enclosure for them fulltime or do you let them run in the house? Are they fixed? Do they spray or are they litterboxed trained if they are allowed in your house? Do you feed whole, raw, exotic feline kibble, or a mix? How old are your servals? How does one get around to get a permit? Where did you get your experience?

Sorry for the questions, lol. Im just so interested.

No problem on the questions![]

I only have one as of now. I got the one I have now after the last passed on, because for me, two servals would probably be a little too much. a Permit is uaually attained with an extensive number of hours working with a licensed person who works with these animals. It can either be paid or not, it depends on where you live for that I believe, and also what the work was. Though some places, you can own without any permit at all. I got my training from working with exotic animal handlers, zoologists in general, etc. BTW, even if you're not going for a permit to own an animal, or even work with them, the sanctuaries across North America are struggling and appreciate ANY volunteer help they can get. Even donating a towel helps.
He does have his own enrichment area, which is big enough for his to run around in at top speed, and jump up as much as he wants. We also have a good sized kiddie pool that he really likes to "swim" in when it's warm enough. He has some "trees" (really just tree limb mimicks, since we can't put trees in the enclosure due to the top of it, and trees grow!) that he can climb around on, and perch on. We often feed him live mice and rats (healthy of course) and he is fed a prey model diet with supplements since he has a problem with his immune system, which we haven't really been able to pinpoint yet, but I'll blame it on the conditions his previous owners kept him in.
He is litterbox trained, and yes, the litterboxes are huge! There are two in my house, in the utility room and in an extra closet. He's pretty good at using them, and it wasn't too hard to train him to use them either. Most of it was tempting him into going there, and praising him when he did well. He was fixed, but that was before he came to me, and apparently when he was fixed, it was not done properly. Another thing I'll blame on his previous owners...sometimes exotic cat owners do the medical things themselves, if they are not supposed to have the animal, and it often leads to the animal dying, or getting extremely ill.[]
He IS allowed in my house, but we are working on teaching him his boundaries still. Servals are big fans of being up high, kind of like birds. He happens to marvel at my entertainment center, with complete disregard to anything on top of it. So I've come home to things on the floor, broken, scattered around, many times. Husband doesn't always make the best cat-sitter. He is around 2, maybe 3 years old, we're not sure exactly. But, he is still young, and being a male, he's going to be, well, a boy!

Thanks for the answers, I'm so jealous of you. Lol, and I would volunteer in a sanctuary ASAP if there was one around me, unfortunately the only thing that keeps wild animals around here is the city zoo and a crappy, neglecting roadside zoo.
 
One of my goals would to own a lynx or a serval, but lynx are illegal to keep in Canada, so I'd have to move.

The roadside zoos are so heartbreaking. []

ugh, I know. and this one is as bad as they can get, small cages, no water, no shelter from the elements, no supervision, .. people are allowed to walk in and out of the baby lion/tiger/lynx cages freely, all the animals are lethargic.. and these people are active in exotic animal trade, I believe they set up a display during the "Taboo Show" fair this weekend with two very young lion cubs. Very scary for two animals to be surrounded by dozens of people prodding at you. No matter how many complaints they get they don't seem to change.

They even have a petition against zoocheck and WSPA because they're consistently hounding them for their horrible enclosures and enrichment for their animals. [8|] They have the nerve to put on their site: [align=center][/color]"I have launched a petition against Zoocheck and WSPA.  If you dislike how these groups are dictating regulations governing GuZoo, please sign by clicking below:[/color][/font][align=center][font=verdana][color=#008000][size=1]Here"[align=center] [color=#008000][size=5][align=left][color=#000000][size=1]Here's guzoo's site:[align=left]http://www.guzooforever.com/[align=left]What they fail to show is the lack of enrichment, lack of shelter, lack of everything on their site. I've visited their "zoo" (jail) once, it's awful.[align=left] [linkhttp://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/177079950][/size][/color][/size][/color][/link][/size][/color]