I dropped about $100 a few days ago to buy a neat terrarium.
To go in it, I purchased two of these:
(http://www.key-net.net/users/swb/pet_arthropod/emperor-all.jpg)
Pandinus imperator.....The Emperor Scorpion
These are the coolest pets!
Before I bought them I bought a book titled, "Scorpions A Complete Pet Owners Manual"
It's pretty in depth and even details scorpion anatomy and breeding.
Before I got that book, I didn't know squat about scorpions. I learned a lot from it.
GO HERE FOR MORE INFO (http://www.key-net.net/users/swb/pet_arthropod/Emperor.htm)
My friends and family all think I'm nuts for keeping scorpions but I don't care. They don't bother me in the slightest. I never handle them though.
I use a pair of bamboo tongs to feed them mealworms. The crickets are easier...just toss 'em in.
Do any of you own an exotic pet?
Post Edited (04-24-05 20:08)
I have a friend who also keeps a scorpion. She is the master of exotic pets, already owning two chinchilas. The idea of owning a scorpion scares me. I like my pets fluffy and non-lethal.
As I stated in the "William Shatner Double Feature" topic, I have 2 tarantulas. One is a Chilean Rose Hair that I've had since '95 and the other is a Cobalt Blue that I got just a few months ago. I won't bore anyone with the details that I've already posted so if you're interested, just do a search for the topic and you'll read all about it.
I used to have an exotic pet or two. Years ago I worked for a pet store. Let's see I had hermit crabs, fire newts and a couple of land crabs, and a crawlfish(sp?)
No exotic pets here just three cats and two dogs.
I'm very interested in other people's exotic pets, but I'm strictly a dog person myself. Mid-sized dogs, neither small and yappy nor big and slobbery. I like all kinds, just wouldn't want to own many of them.
I like dogs too. We have a lab/hound/rotty mix right now that we got in January of 2004. Although he is a nice and friendly dog, he is stupid and clumsy as all hell. Before him we had an all white Siberian Husky who was a beautiful looking dog and excellent with my daughter. Unfortunately he got sick and ran up vet bills to the point that we couldn't do anything for him anymore. They never found out for sure what was wrong with him (we took him to 3 different vets around here numerous times) and we had to let him go. It was the first time my daughter experienced the hardship of losing something to death. He died peacefully in our home but when she saw him, she didn't realize what was happening until I picked him up to take him outside...I have never heard her cry that way. It was a very, very tough day and one that I will never forget (it still makes me well up inside when I think about it).
Rest In Peace Odinn
I used to have a black and white Siberian Huskey named Sebastian (we called him Sab). He had one blue eye and one brown eye, and man, this was one of the coolest dogs I've ever seen. Siberians are incredibly smart dogs.
My wife wants a Golden Retriever now. I've never had one of those, but they seem to be good dogs around kids. We only have one (very ornery) cat right now.
About as exotic as I get with pets are fish in an aquarium. Though I've kept the usual neon tetras and danios, etc. I'm fond of off the wall small sharks. My fish tank (not set up right now) has a very large skull in it, and it is just the coolest thing to watch the sharks swim out of the eyes and stuff.
I've GOT to get that fish tank set back up.
No pets at the moment, but I'm hoping to get a dog, Sparky, by the end of the week. He's lived on a rescue farm all of his 5 years, so it'll be interesting to see how he adapts to a house. Plus he's got 3.5 legs.
We have two dogs, both my wife's from before she met me. One is a Brittany Spaniel, the other is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. Both are little spazzes, but lovable and well trained. They used to do hunting trials and agility, back when there was more time for it.
Brittanies are fun because they take about four or five years to develop a brain. Ours, named Briar, is a little goofball, even at the age of six. I can be laying on the couch, and he will suddenly take a notion to climb up and roll all over my face, all 35 pounds of him. Cuts off the air pretty efficiently, not to mention being hard on the nose. And he's mellowed a lot since I've known him.
The Toller can be a schemer, and she's very high strung. She's not fond of children, so we've got some training to do before we bring one into the house. Tollers can be prone to temperament problems. We love her, but we're not getting another one.
I know exactly what you mean about having a dog that's sick for no apparent reason. Callie (the Toller) had a bunch of symptoms a couple of years ago - serious joint problems, among other things. She was obviously in a lot of pain. We spent hundreds on tests that revealed nothing. We finally switched both dogs to an all-natural diet we prepare ourselves. We wanted to try it anyway. Within about three weeks, she was moving better, she was less anxious and more playful. Her teeth were also cleaner. Within a couple of months, her coat had thickened up, and her tail was fuller than I'd seen it. Don't know if she was just allergic to her food, or wasn't getting the right nutrition from it, but more than two years have gone by, and she's still a happy dog. She's eight years old, but apart from a little white around the muzzle, she looks like a young dog.
I'm glad the natural diet worked for you. We tried everything for Odinn and nothing worked. He had an internal problem that they couldn't diagnose. We finally had to put an end to the vet bills when we were told it would be about $700 to open him up and hopefully they could find something. If they did find something, it would cost more to fix the problem (on top of the $700) and of course no guarantees to whether or not it would work. He wouldn't eat so we force fed him. He couldn't hold his bowels and what was coming out was a mess. I felt real bad for him as he had always been so active and lively but he didn't seem to be in any real pain so we let him die with us rather than putting him down. It was a terrible month of this. Odinn was only a little more than 6 years old and we had him since he was a crazy little puppy. I used to say how he annoyed me because he had to always be up your ass it seemed with no matter what you were doing but at this point, I would give anything to be annoyed by him again.
Off this depressing subject and on to something else...
Ulthar, you mentioned fish tanks. I have had fish since I was 6 years old and then when we moved up here I set up a fish tank. For some reason our water kills off the fish in a few weeks. It goes from neutral to high acid if you don't watch it every day. I never had this problem in Jersey and always found fish tanks very easy to maintain. I have given up on trying to keep fish until we move to another house (we are currently getting ready to market ours soon) so I have nothing like that set up now but here's what I used to have...
When I was in my early teens I had a room set up in our house that had over 10 tanks in it for breeding Fancy Tail guppies. I got some real nice strains out of them and there were some real beautiful fish. Through the years I have had some fairly interesting fish and I hope someday to be able to do it again.
I have had:
Tiger Oscar- He was 10 inches long before he died...what an eater he was.
Albino Oscar- Paid $40 for this fish when they first started hitting the mainstream market. He was about 2 inches long and decided to commit suicide one night by finding his way out between the filter and the hood.
Snakehead- He was about 6 inches long when I got him but he ate unlike anything I've ever seen. He would eat even if he was full. I threw goldfish in with him and rather then eating when he was hungry, he gorged on them and had tails and heads sticking out of his gills. I had to get rid of him eventually. Should've thrown him in the pond now that I think about it.
Pirahna- I've had a few of these over the years. The domesticated ones aren't as bad as they're made out to be but they are a cool conversation piece.
Ghost Knife- Elegant looking swimmer and a real nice looking fish overall.
Elephant Nose- One of the most interesting fish because of their shape.
Of course I've had regular fish too. I love having a tank with a mess of Neons in it. They swim in schools and really look beautiful if the lighting is right.
I've also had one other real odd animal...A snapping turtle. I saved him from the roadside one day in '88 and he was about the size of a 50 cent piece. I wasn't sure what kind of turtle he was at the time but I set up a tank and fed him earthworms until he started to grow. I kept him for about 5 years and then finally turned him over to someone my wife knew that was an expert on turtles. He was a defintie conversation piece. If you wiggled your finger against the glass of his tank, he'd strike at you. Makes you kind of respect them even more.
odinn7 wrote:
> For some reason our water kills off the fish in a few weeks. It
> goes from neutral to high acid if you don't watch it every day.
> I never had this problem in Jersey and always found fish tanks
> very easy to maintain.
At our last house, we had water problems, too. We bought distilled water at the grocery store to do water changes, and it really helped.
>Snakehead- He would eat even if he was full. I threw goldfish in with him and >rather then eating when he was hungry, he gorged on them and had tails and >heads sticking out of his gills.
An old girlfriend and I 'merged tanks' for while. She had newts and water frogs. One traumatic night, we found the tail of one of our sharks sticking out of one of the frogs' mouth - both were dead. Crazy critters eat themselves to death sometimes.
I've never had a pirahna, but thought it'd be cool. Can you keep any other fish with them, or do they pretty much have to have a tank to themselves?
> Of course I've had regular fish too. I love having a tank with
> a mess of Neons in it. They swim in schools and really look
> beautiful if the lighting is right.
Yeah, even tho they are very common, I dig the little neons.
Ever had upside down catfish? They are a really cool, too.
ulthar wrote:
>
> I've never had a pirahna, but thought it'd be cool. Can you
> keep any other fish with them, or do they pretty much have to
> have a tank to themselves?
>
>
> Ever had upside down catfish? They are a really cool, too.
>
Pirahna will attempt to eat anything that's in the tank with them. As a matter of fact, I bought 5 baby pirahna in '94 and put them all in the same tank at once figuring they were together originally so they would probably be ok as long as they were well fed. For the first month everything was fine but once they started to grow at different rates, that's when the problems started. They all ganged up on the smaller one and ate him. A week or so later, the same thing happened. It leveled out for a while when there were 2 left and they were fairly equal in size. I came home one day and found one lying on the bottom with his side eaten away. I wouldn't suggest putting anything in the same tank with them that you don't want them to eat.
Upside down catfish, albino cats, banjo cats and I can't remember what other kind of catfish I've had. Catfish are fun little fish since they're always active and they seem to be "playful" with the other fish.
Anyone else notice this is a BLACK scorpion?
That was my first MST3K....man, i loved it....
Can't wait for the topic: "Hi, My terrarium broke....and guess what? There were scorpions in it!! Yeah....REAL SCORPIONS,man...I'm afraid to go to bed at night"
Years ago I had a tree spider escape from the tank he was in. Big, ugly sucker with long hairy legs. I played it down to my wife to act like she shouldn't be worried (ah, the cats probably got it) but I was scared to sleep at night. Finally after a little more than a week, I found the thing. It was something to go through. I am quite a bit more careful of the way I keep these things now.
Also, as far as the Emperor Scorpion is concerned, it has about the same kind of sting as a tarantula bite. For the most part, scorpions are overplayed in movies, though there are some deadly ones.
Beautiful animals!
I work with 2 different groups: Colorado Reptile Rescue & Raptor Rehab.
They aren't really MY pets, but we do try to find homes for numerous giant iguanas, snakes, turtles, salamanders, etc.
The Raptor Rehab thing is mostly about trying to return big, beautiful, birds of prey to the wild, though some of them have to stick around as they are too injured to be released, too used to people, etc. etc., so they become sort of "pets", eg. "educational animals" -- the ones that sit on your arm when you visit schools, etc.
On topic: How the hell do you attach pictures or put pictures in the body of your letter here? I'd like to send pics. of me with an owl, and the biggest damn iguana ever to the board, but can't figure out how.
peter johnson/denny crane