Should people be allowed to have exotic pets?

Ooh, aery, what animal do you own?

I think there's a lady who posted here before who owned two sevrals,.. I forget her name.
 
ETA- I know, it's like finding the holy grail of exotic et cat information. []
And her sevral Sirrocco is just so pretty.

ORIGINAL: Ratsicles

I did rat rescue, and bred, for several years. The main reason I quit breeding? Finding good adoptive homes was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. My site is out of date, since I don't breed anymore, but here's a link to my adoption application: [linkhttp://ratsiclesrattery.bravehost.com/Adoption.html]http://ratsiclesrattery.bravehost.com/Adoption.html[/link]

OK, quick hijack, but Ratsicles, I remember seeing your website years ago when I was breeding Rex and Hairless rats.  Small world!!

I own a variety of reptiles and small mammals, as well as large mammals. I used to be very big into alpacas!


I no longer own any big cats, though I did own a Caracal a few years ago. A forced move made me rehome him with a lady who had one of her own, and I get updates on him frequently. I'd love to own a Serval soon, or possibly a Fennec Fox.

These animals are more than just fascinating to me. I'm so glad that there are people in this world so dedicated to them. Such as Sirrocco's owner! And he is such a gorgeous animal.

That sucks about having to rehome your Caracal. Hate to change the subject on the thread.. although it is kind of along the thread topic.. , but I'd love to see some pictures of him/her.
 
 

I'll have to dig some out for you!
I owned him before I knew the beauty of a digital camera.[>:]

Oddly enough, I also own an Exotic cat. Hehe.

ORIGINAL: Ratsicles

[sm=lol.gif]  Gosh, I know, I do tend to write novels. Even though I've had them my whole life, dogs really aren't my forte, so I can't post in many dog threads with alot of confidance. When something pertaining to "exotics" comes up, I latch on...I know SO much more about various rodents and reptiles than I do about dogs.

Plus, when I get started on any thread at all, I have a hard time shutting myself up. It's a fault of mine. []

I know how you feel.  I don't say quite as much about dogs here, but I belong to a parenting forum and you should see my posts when someone asks for advice on thier dogs.  Also how heated I get when someone suggests rehoming the dog for not being gentle with the brand new baby even though it has always been rough housed with before and never asked to settle down.  Of course then its mostly me against the rest of the forum...

I would love to own an exotic pet, namely a tiger.  With that said, I do plan on having children in the next few years & I do not feel that children & large cats belong anywhere close to each other.  I do think that people who own exotics should have to have some kind of license to keep these pets.

ORIGINAL: BEVOLASVEGAS

I would love to own an exotic pet, namely a tiger. 

Oh Thats nice... do you plan on buying a jungle too?

I have to say that I'm completely against the owning/breeding of big cats, small wildcats, wolves, and wolf hybrids or even hybrid cats.  The wild belongs in the wild.  Yes, I own an 'exotic' but it's a chinchilla.  They've been domesticated for the fur industry for some time now and to me it's a totally different concept.  I've been around way too many wolf crosses and wolves taken from pet homes that get dumped.  The reality is even though they are close to dogs, their behavior is not like a dog.  A dog is essentially a wolf stuck in the puppy stage forever.  Wolves fully develope their drives and are not inhibited at all.  Many of the wolves that came through the vet rescue came from people who had a lot of dog experience and thought they knew what they were doing ended up realizing they couldn't control these animals.  Wolves do not make good 'pets' for your average person.  I also think it's highly demeaning to see a majestic wolf stuck in someone's home like a furnishing.  I also view wolfdogs as another 'designer dog'.  To me it's a mix mass produced and sold to people for money, no othr reason.  There's deception involved many of the time as far as percentage wolf and it leads people to think that hybrids are easy to care for when they may not have a hybrid at all or may have a small percentage hybrid.  You don't have to have a permit to own a hybrid, they sell them in pet stores here and you can get them easily.
 
All the big cats I've seen in a home situation have been terrible too.  Our neighbor had a tiger in a cage in his house at our old house.  It didn't get much space, nor did it get much attention.  It was loud and obnoxious for neighbors.  And I can't tell you how many lions we got through the ASPCA when I was volunteering.  The majority of them do end up unwanted or dead. 
 
My friend got a monkey from her uncle and he was just a mess to keep.  You have to clean diapers and they get into everything.  She also had a Minah bird, a hedgehog, and a chinchilla which were fine to keep.  Shows that all exotics are not the same.
 
Yay for living in a rich suburb where everyone tries to outdo each other with their cars/pets/etc.  [:'(]
 
Yes, very very very few people could keep them well, but the trade is horrible and ends up in a ton of unwanted animals in the hands of idiots and even well meaning people who just don't have the means or knowledge.
 
Just my 2 cents.
 

It really depends on the person.  I do not think they should be considered pets in the regard that you can get them easily and anyone can have them.  They are only for the experienced.  I have 4 sugar gliders and I love them!  They have more toys than the dogs, and thats a lot!  I have to change their cage around each time I clean so they don't get bored.  They also get a homemade diet based on the original diet used in Australia.  My first pair was a rescue and I did TONS of research.  I do breed them, but I am very picky on where they go.  If I am not 150% sure the person has done enough research, I will not sell them.  I would much rather keep them.  I also have snakes.  Not great as "pets."  But I really love them anyway.  They are fun to handle and watch.  I bred them this year, but my incubator malfunctioned.  The main reason I want to breed is to experience raising the baby snakes.  It is so interesting to me!  Again, if I am not totally positive they are going to a great home, I am prepared to keep all of them!

Oh Colleen, Ill do as much research as you want me to do, if you'll send me a snake...and convince BF to let me have one...

My personal views on it is this, if it grows too large, or lives to long for the average person to care for it should not be kept as a pet.  This includes iguanas, snakes larger than 3.5-4 feet, large cats, most lizards, large parrots and turtles to name a few.  If you want to own these animals and are willing to properly care for them hen applying for a special license to own them shouldn't be a big deal.  To often people get them without even bothering to learn about them it is estimated that something like 90% of iguanas sold in the US die within 2 years due to improper care.  The same follows for most herps if they do manage to survive then most are handed from one person to the next, or set free messing with local habitats or dieing horribly in the wild.  Large parrots such as macaw that have a life span of 75-80 years are often bought by older people that dont allow the bird to bond with others, when their person is no longer there they fade away, often unalbe to bond with someone else.  The other problem is that most of these animals grow so large, people do not realise that a 6 foot iguana or snake need a bedroom to live in, parrots as well need a large space.

As someone who lives with a wild animal, I suppose I should chime in as well.

Kit, my wild hare, came to live with me because he's considered feral, so no wildlife rehabbers would take him and raise him, so, as I took responsibility for taking him out of the wild in the first place (which I felt I had little other choice about at the time), I took responsibility for raising him and taking care of him.

You all probably know that I utterly adore my hare, and have learnt so much from him about animal behaviour in general that I could write a book on it. However, taking care of him is pretty hard. His basic needs are more or less the same as a domestic rabbit, but there the similarites end. Living with Kit turned my life into a constant dance over eggshells. He can fly into a blind panic with practically no warning. I think that he's essentially quite happy with me, but it does sadden me that he misses out on things that come naturally to hares, like digging in the dirt and running in the grass and making himself a nice form in the sun. I'd like to make him a safe run where he can have some outside time, but I don't think I will be able to do that for a long time, yet. In the meantime, it's a constant battle to keep his boredom with domestic life at bay.

As much as I am so grateful for the opportunities for learning and personal growth he has given me, I shudder to think what would have happened to him if a student of animal behaviour didn't pick him up and he ended up in an ordinary household. He's not easy to keep happy! And everything I need to do for him is a major undertaking. Ever tried cutting the claws of a wild hare? It's not fun for anyone.

Don't get me wrong, I adore wild animals. It's why I did zoology and not animal sciences. Wild animals are as good as it gets for me. I've just discovered that I prefer to see them in their natural habitat. If I thought Kit would be happier in the wild than he is with me, I'd release him in a second. If keeping a hare is so hard, I can't imagine how hard it would be to keep a wild predator happy, regardless of what people say about it.

Kit is the greatest thing that ever happened to me, but I certainly won't be looking for another hare when he goes, and there's no way I'm going to fish another out of the wild to fill the hole he leaves. For the simple reason that in my experience, wild animals require a lot more work than you could imagine before having one, I don't think people should be allowed to keep them. I would rather have seen Kit die than living with people that didn't understand his unique needs.

Ratsicles, your rat stories remind me of keeping rabbits. People still think of rabbits as cheap animals you keep in a hutch outside until you wake up one morning to find it's died of something that would have been preventable if you'd realised the rabbit was sick. My last rabbit was every bit as much of a handful as a puppy. I've trained my current one to beg for treats and used a clicker to teach her to accept strokes and brushes. It breaks my heart when I think of all those rabbits out there that get kept in isolation in a hutch so small they can't even stand up in it.

You don't need a jungle to own an exotic cat. Zoos are less "qualified" tjhan some of the owners I know and speak to. If you take a look at the link k..m.a posted you'll see that they help people very thoroughly on that board, especially with enclosures.

Yes, many exotics are wild animals. But there are also wild dogs, wild cats, wild birds...etc. Many of these cats have been bred in captivity and sold for a very long time. My own grandmother spoke of people she knew who owned bobcats, very often, and how well they were taken care of.

In most places, you do need a license to keep these animals, and you also need a minimum of a certain number of hours working for someone who works with these animals. Many of their owners are extremely responsible, and take much better care of them than most zookeepers do.

I personally own large reptiles, and I do not have any trouble with them. Perhaps it's my experience that has had them live so long under my care. I have a 7 foot (nose-tip to tail-end) rock iguana that is kept in a large enclosure and treated like a queen. I fought for her to get out of the horrible conditions of a pet store she was in, and they ended up getting shut down.

Monkeys are not an easy pet to keep. They require an experienced owner, as do large cats, wolves/hybrids, etc. It is not the average person who owns these animals and cares for them. And those animals will doubtfully stay in the care of those people for too long if they are treating them badly...people notice a tiger roaming the backyard and usually don't hesitate to call someone and have it placed in a sanctuary. My enclosures for my Caracal were larger than the enclosure at the local zoo for the Tigers.

You can't just look at exotics as viewed by people who have never owned them, or cared for them. If you know someone who bought one, and ended up having to get rid of it, then they weren't qualified to own one. They probably little to no idea on what they were doing, and just wanted that glamour pet status for themselves. But if you can find someone who is extremely passionate about these animals, perhaps you'll understand better.
Some exotic pet owners are baffled by why people keep dogs, just as some dog owners and cat owners are baffled as to why people would keep exotics. If the animals are in good care with an experienced owner, and not being bought from dealers where the money is going to horrible funding to keep the breeding animals fed minimally and in horrible conditions, then these owners don't need to be talked about as if they do not know what they were doing.

The typical response from the general public is "let the wild stay in the wild"...but that's not the case with more than half of the world who own "domestic" pets. They definitely didn't start out that way. And there are many places in other countries where what we view as the pet dog, they view as wild, and yet, they still 'keep' them, but they are not pets. Someone from here wouldn't want an animal like the ones they use. Unfortunately, if it's something out of the standard view of the world, it must be wrong or horrible.
Until you see these owners truly interacting with their animals, you'll never know. And no, I do not mean cases where handlers have been attacked. That rarely happens, and when it does, it is publicized as much as a pit bull attack and makes a terrible name for both animal and owner.
My caracal would have died in the wild. His breeder had had these animals for many many years. They are, essentially, exotic pets, but they were by no means what you would see from these animals in the wild. There are real, noticeable differenced between captive bred and owned animals to those in the wild, especially if you have the rightly trained eye to see them.

I personally think there is nothing inherently wrong with the keeping of exotics in itself. The problem comes from the complete idiocy of so many of the people who do it. It's mind numbing. Imagine the worst, most ignorant BYB dog owner you can think of. Now multiply that by 10,000. There you have your average reptile, rodent, or bird owner.

Exactly IMO.  I can do without owning/having any exotic so any and all exotics do not suffer at the hands of humans.  Cause we all all know they will.  (do)