Exotic or unusual as in not dogs,cats, hamsters, rabbits, gerbils and guinea pigs.
I mean birds, reptiles, unusual mammals, fish etc.
Why did you pick this particular species?
Any challenges in taking care of these exotics?
Hedgehog or Bearded Dragon count?
Got a Hedgehog because Sugar Gliders sounded like a lot of trouble
Bearded Dragons are great pets, why wouldn’t we have one?
Keeping the temp right is the biggest problem so far. That and learning how to pick up a skittish pincushion.
I used to have a gorgeous yellow rat snake. I love reptiles.
Fish are unusual?
One leopard gecko.
One snapping turtle.
One red-eared sliding turtle.
One betta.
One Juli catfish.
Eventually we will add to this mix either a chameleon or a day gecko, and eventually a parrot as well.
The red-eared slider eats every plant, plastic or real, in his vicinity. Gobble gobble. So he has to live in a totally barren tank.
The gecko needs constant warmth, but he is a cutie and is almost ready to move into his adult home.
I watch the betta very carefully to see if he’ll pick on the catfish but as the cat is a bottom-feeder so far there doesn’t seem to be much problem. You have to be careful with bettas but I’ve found they go well with either bottom-feeders or fish bigger than them. I had a betta living with angels for a long time, and even though the trailing fins must have tempted him, he didn’t attempt to pick on them.
I really don’t like so-called ordinary pets.
Used to have a pair of Columbian boas and a freshwater stingray (*Potamotrygon hystrix *). Oh, and some eyespot day gecko’s. And anoles, of course, but those are hardly unusual.
The stingray was a picky eater, live earthworms were about all he’d eat (and filtering any small bits in the gravel). The lady at the gas station thought I was a fanatic fisherman, buying worms all winter…
Guess. 
I went with ferrets because they’re quiet, can be caged when not under supervision, and are litter-box trained. Our two live in a tall three-level cage with padded, covered hammocks to sleep in, a large water bottle and food dish (they eat ferret kibble), some toys, and a large litter box in the bottom.
They’re about halfway between a puppy and a kitten in behavior - playful, some can be more standoffish and wanting to play only with other ferrets, while others can be more human-focused, some are more hyper while others (especially with age) can spend some time hanging out on your lap. They don’t bark or meow; their noises are quiet. They have dog-like claws and can’t easily shred furniture. With some effort you can teach them tricks; I had a few ferrets who could sit up on command.
There are definite caveats - these are probably not the best pets for small children as not only are they comparatively fragile, but they also need to be trained when kits not to nip. (Ferrets have tough skin and are used to fighting with siblings by nipping, scruffing each other, etc.) It also seems like most of the breeders for pet stores have high incidences of various cancers in their breeding lines; my oldest ferret (5 previous ferrets, 2 currently) lived to age 8. They are so tiny that they can get into small spaces (half-dollar or so) so your home will require a lot of ferretproofing of one form or another. They love chewing foam, rubber, and other squishy stuff that has a high chance of clogging their digestive tract and requiring expensive surgery to avoid a painful death. They don’t do well in heat; temperatures over 75 or so will be uncomfortable and higher can lead to heatstroke.
Our neighbors have one of these. Yeah I know it looks like a cat, but at 30 pounds and eating raw meat, it’s more like a dog with talons! It’s cool and all, but the dogs are afraid of it. Our pooch - a rhodesian ridgeback - got a swat when we first moved in, and it won’r go near it anymore.
Wow Bobotheoptimist! You’ve got quite a menagerie. I didn’t know fresh water string rays existed.
I had a beautiful king snake once. He escaped his new terrarium and my retired Bayou-Kitty promptly killed and ate him. 
I have a three-legged cat, Elwood . It’s more of a challenge than you would think: cat perches with “steps” so he can look out a window, a bench at the foot of the bed so he doesn’t tear up the comforter, etc. He will climb any tree in a New York second! He’s an indoor cat, but there is a tree just outside our front door. Some mornings I’m late to work because he bolted out the door and up the tree. Getting up is easy for him, getting down is a whole lot harder. :smack:
I have a royal python (commonly called “ball python” in the US).
One of my standing jokes is that some people read Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and come away wanting a free love commune; I read it and came away wanting a snake, tattoos, and a padded room. 
But more seriously, my husband and I were poking around a pet store (I think for something for his fish tank) and I saw a tank of baby royals, and they are gorgeous, gorgeous snakes.
Taking care of him is, on the whole, fairly easy; captive-bred royals are among the three recommended beginner snakes. (“Captive bred” is important to that – wild-caught is not only ethically problematic for animal protection reasons, but they are likely to refuse prekilled meals and ordinary feeder rodents in general.) He needs a humidifier in his tank so he sheds properly, and occasionally refuses food. The biggest issue is that royals are notorious cagebreakers; he’s escaped three times, and finding a snake in a house is not exactly easy (each time we’ve found him hiding in a corner, presumably because it keeps him safe from the cats).
I also have a couple of fish, and can’t wrap my head around considering that exotic.
Someday, I will have a parrot.
(My husband sometimes wonders how he wound up in the zoo. He’s a military brat, so his notion of “pet” from childhood is mostly “hermit crab”.)
My spotted kingsnake would break out when it was shedding time. After the first time, I always knew where to look: curled up inside one of my old boots in the closet.
My tri-color kingsnake broke out twice. First time, I found him curled up in a sunny spot. The second time he disappeared for good.
The Burmese Python never escaped.
3 Budgies, 2 Cockatiels, 1 Doggie (believed from appearances to be a pit bull/basset/beagle mix), 1 Chinchilla.
One of the budgies is a pet store purchase from way back, originally intended as a companion for a bird who has since died. One of the budgies hatched in our house (since then, we’ve been more careful to replace any eggs before they develop).
The rest are rescues, in the sense that we opened our home to them, not in the “we dressed in black pajamas and liberated them from the pet-store oligarchy” sense.
Our reasons were a fusion of “someone has to step up for these critters” and “dang, that’s a cute one!”
Challenges? Yeah.
Small parrots are messy, demanding, and require out-of-cage time and attention every day. They need to be challenged and entertained, not warehoused. They make noise. They sing and chatter. They nip sometimes. They cannot be punished effectively (birds don’t react to punishment by learning to avoid the behavior, they react by learning to hate and fear the one punishing.) They have to be covered every night and sometimes thrash in their cages if they hear a scary noise (then they need to be waked up and calmed down and checked for injuries.)
Several of the birds like to be petted on the head, and will nudge their favored human for attention. They all like a little change of pace, new toys, to hear us talking to them, and other such entertainment. They each have a very distinct personality.
Birdproofing the room and house for safety is a major issue. We’ve thrown out bird-room furniture they got trapped behind. We’ve simplified that room a lot, but there’s always more. They bite electrical cords sometimes. They fall into open-topped wastebaskets. They chew picture frames. Nonstick cookware fumes, many but not all houseplants, insecticide, candles, carbon monoxide, essential oils, smoke, and new carpet smell can kill them.
The chinchilla requires messy super-fine sand to bathe in at least every other day. He also requires out-of-cage time and exercise. He requires less attention than the birds, but he’s a rodent, and thus drops lots of droppings.
Chinchillas have very strict dietary and temperature requirements. At 80 degrees F or hotter, they can have strokes - they’re cold weather animals. They eat a very dry, bland diet low in fresh foods and high in fiber. They cannot get wet – they’re prone to fungal infections of the skin under all that fur. They love to hop up onto things and look around – plunging into an open toilet is a common cause of death among pet chinchilla s.
The birds need warmer temperatures, preferably 68 F or warmer, although they can survive colder temps, but need to be protected from a draft. They need showers with a mister bottle at least weekly.
Our place uses shared central air conditioning that is only available after a fixed time in the spring, and turned off in the fall. This means we have to constantly monitor the temperature, aiming for 70-74. With no way to cool the house effectively for the chin, we open a (screened) window, creating a draft hazard to the birds.
The dog is easier to care for, but required expensive surgery on her hip, due to injury or abuse before we met her. She’s fine now except for occasional diarrhea which we are still monitoring/diagnosing. She has to be walked several times a day…my wife works nearby and drives home at lunch. This is harder on us in the current cold snap. And of course a dog requires love and attention and toys and excursions/adventures. And two beds (living room/bedroom).
I get up at 5 AM and the birds get covered at 8:30 PM, then it’s time to walk the dog for her 4th walk at 10 PM or so. Everyone gets fresh food and water twice every day, and we cook for the birds (peas, corn, pasta) most nights and the dog every night. Cleaning the birdroom is a major weekly chore.
They give us nothing in return.
Except love, according to their kind, and an almost constant sense of wonder.
Sailboat
I have very very expensive fish. It’s challenging to find appropriate veterinary care. Few people would pay $200-500 for a house call for a fish, but it makes sense for a $X000 fish.
Snakes, geckos, a bearded dragon and a mess of tarantulas. I also have a new baby praying mantis.
I recently had some mudskippers as well, but they all died. For some reason, they just refused to eat. I think I’ll try a different mudskipper variety next time.
In the somewhat recent Alex thread, someone linked to a National Geographic show that showed a new program being tested to allow parrots onto the internet. To keep them occupied, you know. I will welcome our newest SD members.
My husband keeps a 125-gallon saltwater aquarium. Right now the stock includes:
Two clownfish
One lawnmower blenny
Three pajama cardinals
One psychedelic mandarin
One royal gamma
There’s also a clam, a bunch of peppermint shrimp, hermit crabs, snails, and soft corals. There are bristle worms too but I like to pretend they’re not there. I mean, I have spiders in my house too but I don’t call them pets.
They’re not exactly pets, but we have some fat little wall lizards living outside our home, on the building’s outside walls. Called “jingjok” here, they’re what we called “geckos” in Hawaii. I think Florida has them, too. We leave the balcony light on at night to attract more bugs for them to eat. Cute little guys.
I have 2 veiled chameleons. Very cool pets!
At night in south Florida, if you look at the lights on the sides of any and every building, you will find a lizard waiting for bugs. One lizard per light. You have to look hard sometimes. They’re chameleonic to different degrees.
My grandfather had a pet groundhog.
He had shot one which was stealing from his garden and when he examined the corpse, he saw that it was a nursing mother. So, he looked around until he found the den and discovered a single baby inside. He took it home with him.
He named it Georgette, for reasons known only to him and God. He fed it kitten milk and trained it to use a litter box. When it got older, he built Georgette a “den” inside a wooden box into which he would put a fresh shovel-ful of dirt every day. (He reasoned that groundhogs must get some kind of minerals from dirt and wanted to make sure Georgette had everything she needed.) Georgette slept in there, but was free to roam the house.
Not knowing exactly what groundhogs prefer to eat, he presented Georgette with a range of vegetables purchased from different stores, and a variety of junk food such as potato chips and Fig Newtons. Georgette proved to be a very picky eater, disdaining vegetables from the nearest grocery store, meaning that my grandfather had to drive half an hour to the next one. (Grandpa theorized that the nearby grocery store might buy vegetables that were sprayed with some kind of preservative Georgette didn’t like.) She would also only eat one brand of potato chips: a local brand which was only sold in certain stores whcih necessitated another long car ride to fetch.
But Grandpa was happy to do it. He loved Georgette. She was much like a cat, very affectionate and snuggly, and terribly mischevious. She built a secondary den by tearing out the thin fabric beneath a matress and climbing up inside, lining her new nest with papers she would steal and wad. (Whenever Grandpa couldn’t find documents for his business, he would often have to go turn over the mattress to see if Georgette had “filed” them.) My grandmother made Georgette a couple of little dresses (which she did not like to wear.)
He regretted that he wasn’t able to take Georgette to the vet because of the legal aspects of owning a pet groundhog. He wasn’t sure what the law was, and he was hesitant to even call and ask, afraid they’d find out who he was somehow and take away his pet. He wormed her using medications for cats and even used feline Advantage to keep fleas from her.
When Georgette reached maturity, I got a phone call from Grandpa one eveing. “Found out that Georgette is actually a* George*,” he said. “No wonder he hated wearing those dresses!”
That spring, he built George his own play yard, fenced in so that no neighboring dogs or cats could harm him. George played merrily out there, digging and rooting. Unfortunately, Grandpa didn’t think about the natural predator of groundhogs: hawks. Looking back, what happened was probably inevitable-- shreds of George’s body were found when Grandpa went to bring him inside for his lunch. Grandpa wept for days. Honestly, I don’t think he’s ever really gotten over it.
No, no. The most popular web site for parrots is, of course…
