Exotic animals at home

Exotic animals at home

Exotic pets – rare or unusual pets; animals that live in human households, and are somewhat unusual to keep or are usually considered wild rather than domestic animals.

 How to choose an exotic animal (housing conditions)

Take into account your living conditions. You should be especially careful to calculate all the pros and cons as carefully as possible if you have small children. Is your future pet potentially dangerous or not? Can children contact it safely? At the slightest hint of danger to others, the purchase should be abandoned.

Who is in the potential “risk group”? Snakes, spiders, some species of lizards, large mammals – all of them can cause serious injuries, sometimes even incompatible with life. In the vast majority of cases, these animals are not amenable to training and education, like our well-known pets – cats and dogs.

It is also important to remember that exotic animals can be smuggled into the country. Unscrupulous traders catch animals in the wild and then offer to buy them as pets. So, by buying a smuggled animal, you will support the destruction of these animals in nature.

If you decide to bring a lizard or an exotic parrot into the family, go to a specialized nursery or pet store. The document that confirms the legality of importing an exotic animal into the country is called a CITES certificate.

Feeding, treatment, disease

When deciding to buy any exotic pet, be sure to ask the nearby veterinary clinics what kind of help “in which case” you can provide. You need to have a clear plan of action in mind what to do if, for example, your pet is injured. And even more, it’s important to understand how to quickly neutralize the bite of your pet and where to get first aid in case of injury to an exotic animal.

Eating and keeping exotic animals in the house is also very different from traditional pets. It is also necessary to buy food for exotic rodents and reptiles only in specialized stores, so as not to endanger your pet.

What do you need to know before making an exotic friend?

The first thing to do is find out as much as possible information about the animal you are going to buy.

It is all because there are conditions that are stereotypically formed in our thinking. For example, they buy a small turtle, they are told that they do not need anything special, only a bowl, a light bulb and food. In fact, it turns out that it will grow up to 30 centimetres, it needs an aquarium of at least 250 litres, an ultraviolet lamp, a heater.

So before you bring an exotic animal home, think:

  • do not violating environmental laws by buying an exotic animal;
  • how much space in the house you are willing to allocate for the animal (limited to a hamster or buy an iguana);
  • what equipment is needed and what is its budget for the year;
  • what food;
  • what vaccination;
  • what are the costs of sterilization

And, most importantly, remember, you are not buying a toy, but a pet. Quoting the famous philosophical novel written by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “We are responsible for those who have been tamed.”