What's Your Not-so-ordinary Pet ?

We have a ball python my son named Tizzie :) and once a week we have pet rats lol but as my son says Tizzie hugs them to hard lol

We had a roadrunner and a baby fox that use to come visit us at a different house that was in a more wooded area. Loved those little guys!

Does my husband count?

We have chickens, which is somewhat different. I love having fresh eggs. And we have two lizards and a rabbit that we feed on a regular basis. The rabbit lives in a hole near our shed so we leave food for her there and she's starting to become less skittish. The two lizards climb all over our house and pause and watch us when we come out the back door. My kids chase them all over and try to catch them (which probably isn't very nice, but it's fun to watch).

I had a raccoon family that lived under my hottub for a few years (renting). The mom, before she became mom, I met the night a car took one of her legs. She scared the bejeebers out of me at 1am in the middle of winter one year, let me tell you.

Long story short; got her fixed up, made sure she had worming meds in her food once a month and vaxs once a year, and we became nighttime pals. She even introduced me to her babies the next year (I'd sit on the chair out on my deck, and she'd usually come sit by me for an hour or so every night. When she had her babies, that stopped, but she'd bring the 3 of them over to my chair every night before they'd go PLAY. Instead of just going straight down to the yard, they'd loop up onto the deck to pass by my chair and loop back down. It was about 20 feet out of their way. 20 feet to my chair, then turn right back the way they'd come, and then they'd play down in the yard for awhile. They played in the yard... rolling balls back and forth to each other, sliding down the slide, pouncing on bugs, pushing 'ride it' toys around -they didn't ride them, just pushed them- for 2-3 hours every night. Then they'd go do their raccoon thing, and come back about dawn to go to bed under the hottub. I'd sometimes find "treasures" left by my chair when I came out in the morning. A tennis ball. Shiny things. And a bunch of red sticks, once -fire work sticks, the kind rockets get attached to, 11 of them.). Once they came TUMBLING out from under the hottub, and she just went straight down into the yard, left them wrestling with each other, came back to my chair and just FLOPPED down and gave me 'puppy dog eyes'. She looked beat. I couldn't stop laughing. Apparently, the kids were driving her nuts that day. She'd occasionally chitter at them, and then just put her head back down. She stayed for about 10 minutes, DRAGGED herself to her feet, and went down to the yard and proceeded to make them all sit in a line and follow her straight out of the yard with their tails between their legs. Yah, momma. I've days like that, too.

Ever since I 'adopted' her, for a 3 block radius, everyone's garbage became safe.

I HATED moving from that house. But I introduced her to my neighbor, Ed. He doesn't know where she moved to (she left my hottub deck when I moved, apparently... the house sat empty for a couple months), but he says she comes by his house about once a week, and he keeps her and her fam wormed and vax'd. His son likes to leave out balls for the wee ones to play with. She's pretty easy to tell from the other raccoons, because she only has 3 legs. And yes. The garbage is still safe on that block.

That is so cute! We've had a couple of harmless wolf spiders that we leave alone because they are harmless (HUGE, but harmless). Walter was the first one, Charlotte was the second one. Don't think we fed them, though - their web was sufficient :)

We have a heavily wooded lot and we have gotten to know the many animal families who live here pretty well. We had a screech owl couple, who scared the stew out of the song birds (finches, cardinals, and chickadees) when they'd be out and about hunting rodents. Mr. Screech Owl was hit by a car and we actually spent the money to have him saved at a nearby clinic.

We know the Cardinals very well. They live on one side of the property in some pines. We also have a Blue Jay family on the otherside of the property. The patriarchs have some serious territorial fights over the water fountain and berry patch all the time. It's hilarious. Not a day goes by, they don't have their "argument."

We have some squirrels (A family of about 4) that live in a Maple who wake us every morning at the same time when they jump from the tree to the roof.

There is an evil Kestrel that lives on a neighboring property who causes great havoc for all of the critters. Last summer, the Cardinals suffered a terrible loss when one of their babies was purposely knocked out the nest by the Kestrel while mom and dad were off getting food. They tried to save him, and the fight was brutal to say the least. We were really sad.

We had ducks that had a nest by the house until the resident raccoons attacked mom. The rest of the brood relocated.

We have humming birds, toads, frogs, mean little black ants that bite, boxelder bugs from a neighbors tree in the fall, garden snakes, moles, foxes, and wild turkeys that come for seasonal visits.

Once in a while we will have deer in the yard. One Christmas Eve, a 12-point buck was in our backyard and my toddler was convinced Santa was on the roof and the buck was Blitzen. Totally funny until it looked like Blitzen was going to try to bust through our patio doors(glass) because he got panicked because he couldn't find his way around our fence.

There is a Wendy's not far from home that is swarmed with Seagulls. The kids like to throw fries and watch them go nuts. I get weirded out when dh tosses a chicken nugget. I always yell, "Go home you cannibals." I think it's weird there are so many Seagulls since we don't live near the ocean...just lakes. I think they're addicted to fast food.

My husband friend had a ground hog. It was mean and would jump on it's cage and shake it. We used to have a chipmunk that would meet us at our sliding door everyday. We used to toss him bread crumbs. We had to stop though because we got a dog and she went crazy when he just sat outside the door like that. I was afraid he would get eaten.

We just adopted a bunny from my son's daycare. I was worried about how our cats would react given the whole predator/prey thing. After a few hours of mild curiosity and confusion, they sniffed the bunny and now could care less. Same with our dogs - they realized it doesn't have feathers (they are bird dogs) and it can't throw a ball for them so they are not interested.

At our cabin we have a marmot that lives under the porch of a cabin down the road. We can watch him/her sit on the steps in the sun. If someone else comes into the area he/she disappears. But if we walk down towards the porch, we get a head lift and a look like "do you mind, I am sleeping here". Simply because we don't know what would happen we usually keep our distance to about 10 feet. We'll leave snacks for later and head back to our cabin. And every time we get back, there is a squirrel sitting on our porch blocking the doorway, waiting for his/her treat.

We have 7 frogs right now, 1 blue-tailed skink, 8 polliwogs and multiple deer that come to feed and utilize the salt lick ~ the frogs are from around our place, so is the skink and the polliwogs are from a creek we visited while camping (all this along with our 8 chickens, 3 cats and 1 dog). There is a Doe that has raised her twin fawns in our yard since they were born. There are around every morning and every evening ~ they are regulars.

I have a crayfish that lives with my turtle in his aquarium. It is left over from when I bought 3rd grade science last year and we did an animal territories unit. Crayfish are VERY territorial. He and the turtle get along fine, though.

Because of my dog, the outside animals run and hide.

We had snails! I found two snails in a jewelry box filled with carrots that my daughter was feeding them! Quite a surprise! I put them in our terrarium and didn't pay much attention until one day I put a carrot in and there were many more snails! I was shocked and fascinated! We kept them for a while but there were so many, we set them free!

we have a big bush type tree thing in our front yard right up next to the front porch and some redbirds made a nest and layed eggs. we have a family of rabbits that takes up habitat under the front porch behind the lattice. we get groundhogs living under our shed.

the neighbors have a black cat that is an outside cat. they kind of adopted it from their old neighborhood before they moved here last year. they brought it with them and it is still an outside cat that roams the neighborhood. my husband will sometimes put out small bowls with a can of tuna for him, he loves that.

We have a pet iguana name Kobe.. My husband and son found him outside the zoo sunbathing on a rock.. He was a baby and was super calm..

PS if it counts, growing up I had a : bull, horse, pony, and cow :0) They were all pets~

All we have now are dogs and goldfish. But as a child there was a squirrel who would come and tap on our window in our living room, and we would toss him out snacks. We named him/her cookie. My step-dad rescued a mallard duck that had an injured leg, nursed him back to health and even dug a pond for him. He recovered and came back every year in the spring with his "wife" and they would nest there. Very cute :)
We also had water turtles, box turtles, and chickens at one point.
This past spring I "rescued" a nest of baby bunnies from kids in the neighborhood who wanted to keep them as pets. I watched that nest like a hawk after they stole them once. My husband was laughing at me calling me the bunny nazi, but I didn't care! I love animals, and knew those babies would die. The mom and the babies stuck around a yard for a long time :)

We get a lot fo green tree frogs and lizards in the house, I haven't named any of them though. I try to catch them and put them outside. Once I was grilling and a teeny tiny green tree from (about as big as my pinky nail) was too close to the grill so I picked him up but he didn't want to jump off my arm, so he hung out on my arm while I was flipping burgers, it was really cute.

Growing up we had all kinds of strays. I had a duck for 2 weeks that my mom rescued because it had a bum leg, we got it well and released it back to the wild, It was a female mallard. I have had many stray dogs and cats visit but nothing else unusual. I can't stand snakes so if I see one I stay in the house.

Jeese growing up, our house was a zoo.
at one time we had:
a dog, 5cats, 4 guinea pigs, 2 iguanas (one that was over 6ft) 2 horses, a rat, about 50 fish, sharks, hermit crabs, 4 hamsters, a ferret, a female cardinal (it broke its wings when it was a baby so we took it in) 2 cockatiels

Then we had a family of raccoons that used to hang by our sliding glass door so we could feed them. And a few deer that loved hanging around our backyard. We actually put out salt licks for them.

I am an instructor at a nature center. I also work in the office five days a week. So I'm around reptiles, amphibians, arachnids and insects basically every day.

Currently at home, my 9 yo daughter has two pet hermit crabs. My 13 yo son has a uromastyx lizard named Spike. And we have a 9 yo tabby cat named Sassy.

Over the years, we've had rats, toads, frogs, hermit crabs, hamsters, gerbils, mice, praying mantis, butterflies, ants, katydid, wooly bear catepillars, beta fish, goldfish and I am sure I'm forgetting something.

Pets are fantastic for kids. They offer so many great learning opportunities.

We have a female duck and two male ducks that hang around. We haven't named them. The males are part mallard part domestic duck. They like to lay in the shade of one of my maples. We have a snake that suns itself on our front walkway. We have a great heron that I have named Adele. I like to watch her fish. Squirrels, of course. One woodpecker that lives in one of our oak trees that is named Big Ron. In the fall we have flocks of geese. We also have two turtles that hang out on a specific log. I can never be sure if they are the same ones though because I can't get close enough to them.

Well, I have had:
Axolotls
Tree Frogs
Chameleon
Crayfish
The usual dogs and cats
Horses

My kids have:
rabbit
Pill Bugs (ie: Rollie-pollies)
Gecko
And crickets to feed the Gecko

Cute! We have a M. deer and two fawns that come to our yard every night. We throw apples to them. (Probably shouldn't.) We haven't named them...

We also have Toadie, a toad, that lives in our front garden.