Last week we visited my old friend from high school. Back then we had one thing in common: Fishes! We both had several aquaria with a multitude of fishes. However contact ended after he changed schools and we didn’t hear about each other for 15 years. Then last year he found me on Facebook (seems like social media can be useful at times) and we started chatting again. Last weekend we decided that we should visit him and his fiancée as they had something very special in their apartment.
You see his love for animals never ended so from fishes he got to spiders, lizards, snakes you name it and his fiancée got a love for degus. So when we visited them their apartment resembled more a zoo shop than a place to live in. With most of their animals they actually do selective breeding and resell them. I do not know how lucrative this is but it at least covers all the costs as some of the more special geckos actually sell for several hundred Euros!
When we went down their cellar/ super animal room Nathan went all nuts. He just ran in circles, checking out each enclosure and making his high-pitched happy sound. It was really amazing to see how happy he got once we entered this room, I mean he could not even see any animals from his viewpoint but he smelled, heard and somehow sensed them I guess. We tried our luck to take pictures of him touching a snake but he wasn’t up for it. For some reason he was shy when the snake was presented, well too bad…
Upstairs my friend and his fiance had also few enclosure including one with African pygmy hedgehogs. I don’t have any pictures of them but if you just google them you can make see that those are incredible cute! Basically they have all kinds of animals such as corn snakes, crested geckos, mice, rats, degus, chameleons, tarantulas, turtles, fishes, shrimps and last but not least a pug. Yes a pug, didn’t really fit into their collection but the dog was really fond of Nathan and Nathan was fond of squeezing that poor little thing.
Do you have also pets or even such less common pets as my friend? Did you ever considered selective breeding them like him?
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Crazy Chinese Family 
Shocks. Whatever happens or whatever the encouragement will be, I am and will forever be afraid of snakes!
Snakes are not that bad but those huge African Snails!”!!!
When I was younger, I was almost bitten by snake! So the fear is still within me, but who knows if one day I would conquer that fear!
And by the way, are those mice hamsters? They do look cute and adorable!
In that one picture it is a small Degu and in that other picture it is a bunch of little rats not totally grown up yet :p
WOW! I WOULD LOVE TO SEE THOSE DEGU!!!
Degus are pretty funny fellows. Also thought several years ago to get a few but in the end we settled for a dwarf hamster 🙂
Today, my parents saw the picture of those Degu … and this morning they were contacting any pet sellers whom they have known … and they can’t find one! 😦
We feel so sad right nooooooooooooooooow!
I am surprised that they don’t have degus as at least here they are very common and every pet store got s bunch of them 🙂
Ugh! I hate this feeling! I mean, we hate this feeling! 😥
My gosh, your friend’s place looks like and resembles more than that of a zoo. I don’t think many zoos have all the kinds of animals he has. He must have done a good job of taming them and behaving in front of guests like you and your family because there was no other incident apart from Nathan having loads of fun 🙂
I don’t have pets, and growing up my parents didn’t want us to have pets in the house mainly because they thought pets made the house messiers – and because I have allergies. I’ve always wanted a monkey as a pet but that’s illegal here in Australia and pretty much the whole world. So I have to contend with my stuffed monkey collection at home…if anyone comes to visit me and want to bring a housewarming gift, they know what to bring… 😉
I wasn’t allowed any pets either until I got suddenly interested in Lizzards and my parents told me the location of my brothers old Aquarium as my mother is scared of all kinds of lizzards, bugs, snakes and so on..
Well this is how I got into the aquarium stuff but I never had any other pets either until I got together with my wife. Since then we had a dwarf hamster, now two bunnies and well…several aquaria again but that it stuff for another blog post…
Sounds like you are building your own little zoo enclosure in your apartment, Crazy. Nathan will certainly be begging for more additions to your zoo in the years to come, I am sure of that. Looking forward to another animal blog post from you at some point 😉
Didn’t know monkey pets could get that wild. Sad to hear.
Monkeys tend to have some rather wild/ aggressive every once a while.
I certainly hope right now not to have any further additions to our animal collection, it’s enough work already now 🙂
And pet monkeys! MY wife wanted also one until she saw in a CHinese tv show how much dirt they make and how aggresive they are during certain times :p
A few months ago we adopted a dachshund mix from the animal shelter. Now that spring is here he has become very naughty. Yesterday he saw a squirrel and flew out the front door. Who knew his little legs could move so fast?! 2 hours later we found him 1.5 miles away. I can’t imagine what my Chinese in-laws would think of him and how we treat him like a member of the family.
Yeah, sadly animals are mostly still treated rather bad in China. My mother-in-law was so surprised last year in Finland that people went out with their dogs three times a day, no matter how bad the weather and even during the codlest winter times with -30 degrees celsius. She goes out with her dogs perhaps three times a week, during a good week…
That’s very cute the little guy likes animals 😀
Well he likes them so much he would love to bite them. Good for the animals that they are quick enough to escape his little sharp teeth!
Your friend has an amazing collection of animals! It’s very clean too and I think it must be difficult to take care of so many! I hope I can get a pet soon ^^
It is very much work to have so many animals to take care of, especially the babies
What fun for Nathan! I’m glad I didn’t marry your friend. I’d hate to live with all those animals. When our kids were young, we lived in the Philippines. Then raised fish and a myna bird indoors. Outdoors we had a huge walk-in bird cage with parakeets, quail, and chickens, including silkies. We also had a pair of beagles.
Yes, the apartment was pretty full but both of them love their pets so it works out for them.
Your pet collection was t so bad either, especially the walk in cage sounded very nice!
Nathan seemed to have so much fun checking out the animals. And I agree with Nicki – I don’t think I could live with all of those animals.
When I was younger, I had a pet budgie bird. He was awesome because he would fly around the house, land on our heads and shoulders, and would always make his way back to the cage to eat and what not.
I always wanted a budgie for a time as my friend also had one and the friend of my brother was also breeding them so he lots of them. But in the end my parents didn’t allow it and I believe it was a good decision 🙂
I have to say,a s much as I really love animals, I am not the biggest fan of reptiles.. However, one of my secret dreams is being able to host a huge variety of animals one day. I really really love dogs, cats, bunnies, sheeps, cows, birds and so on. If only city life allowed me to live in a bigger house with a garden, I would totally do that.
Unfortunately, being about to move to London, I don’t see that happening anytime soon 😦
My friend is lucky that most of his pets don’t need much running space. The African hedgehogs actually need several hours a day outside the enclosure so they even let them run lose in the apartment! Too bad that you willl have to postpone your plans
I wanted to talk about those pets of your friend’s, but what really amazed me is the fact that you were able to visit your friend at all! How? With the crazy MIL in tow? 😀
Dear MIL stayed at home 🙂
So in the end it was not only nice to visit my friends and see all those animals but also to get s few hours away from her!
Wow! That place looks like a zoo! I grew up with a lot of animals too, though less exotic ones. If I were that pug I think I’d be really afraid:)
Lucky you, I always wished to grow up with many pets but my parents were against it :p
Oh, my. I have only had normal things, like dogs and goldfish, haha. A friend here in Shanghai has a cricket and a frog…