[mpimping]

sara do u like doggie?

[SoYank]

Do dust bunnies count? They breed like, er, rabbits.

[Sara]

Originally Posted by SoYank

Do dust bunnies count? They breed like, er, rabbits.

Anything besides the usual dog and cat counts.

[RVExotics]

I guess you could say I'm a bit of an animal fanatic (hence the nickname, it doesn't stand for exotic cars). I do have a couple of "normal" critters - two mini schnauzers, but the rest of my current menagerie includes:

-2 emus, Henry and Iris
-1 rhea (google it, kind of like a "miniature" ostrich)
-7 goats
-1 peahen
-2 bantam chickens
-1 Mandarin duck
-a few random fish
-4 jungle carpet pythons
-2 Bredl's carpet pythons
-2 Irian Jaya carpet pythons
-2 olive pythons
-1 spotted python
-1 Rufous beaked snake
-1 cornsnake
-1 copperhead
-1 hybrid kingsnake
-2 Chinese king ratsnakes
-1 ball python
-about 10 rats
-about 30 mice (guess what for)

That's right now. In the past, I had a huge collection of venomous snakes from cobras, to mambas and taipans, to various rattlesnake species (yes it's legal in this state and I had the proper experience to care for them). I've had wallabies, New Guinea singing dogs, Patagonian cavies, Lady Gouldian finches, eclectus parrots, ferrets, a cassowary, ostriches, etc. It gets a little busy around here sometimes

Me and an ostrich chick I hatched


Some emu chicks I hatched


Me and the cassowary (I wouldn't recommend this with about 99% of the cassowaries in the world, as most would use that 5" spike on the inside toe of both feet to see how quickly they could disembowel you. Darwin was a special case though.)



The aforementioned Patagonian cavies - kind of like deer/rabbit crosses


A Dama wallaby


An albino monocled cobra I had


An Egyptian cobra


Scanning Electron Micrograph of a fang shed by one of my cobras


Cobra who shed the fang


One of the carpet pythons I have now


Me in my classroom last year teaching about one of the US's most endangered large snake species, the Louisiana pinesnake


And a random chemistry student charming a woma python


So do I win?

[SoYank]

Originally Posted by RVExotics

So do I win?

Snakes alive, I'd say you do!

[oldaccount]

so is that cassowarie raptor-bird de-clawed, or do you just have cajones the size of watermelons?

[Scorpion]

Anyone got a Scorpion? That would be awesome to see lol.

[RVExotics]

The cassowary was fully intact!



Notice the long claws on the inside toes.

He had been hand reared by an older couple when I bought him, and somehow he never adopted the typical "gonna kill you" cassowary 'tude. Most of them will be fine while they're growing up, and will imprint strongly on people just like any other bird. But usually when they hit sexual maturity, cassowaries make a complete 180 and are at that point unapproachable. Darwin was a special case. It really killed me when he went down from some kind of infection and never recovered. RIP

[Sara]

OMG!!! Those deer/rabbit things are sooo cute!! I want one!!

[Tondtar]

Good God! ...Son, not only you win but I also think you deserve to have your own TV show with this collection of exotic creatures