Pets

[katya]

Originally Posted by Mari

Lady R, the eyes of Rose in the second pic kinda look like those eye-buttons. (okay, this does make sense if you have a grandmother who makes cats and uses glass eye-buttons for the eyes >_<)

I know what you mean. I have a bunny with glass eyes. Er... eye.... (she's been a cyclops for as long as I can remember, but there was another eye at one time.)

Post more cute kitties!!!!

[Mari]

NOOOO! No more cuteness! Can't... take... all the.... CUTENESS!!! >_<

[Mari]

I've become an auntie! We now have 4 "dikkopjes": little fish that are supposed to grow into a frog.
We also found out that fish like to eat frog eggs... So we had to build a small nursery.

[Nautipus]

Where's Earniel, once she gets wind of this, she'll pounce on it...

[Earniel]

I promise I'm well-behaved and won't rob Mari of her tadpoles. Not just because I don't know what kind frogs she has and I wouldn't like hell want to be stuck with bull frogs! But also because we too have tadpoles, or rather toadpoles! The ten cm of egg-string that survived the evil duck-trashing has hatched! Which means we've got about three dozen of tiny, tiny toadpoles! Yeay!

Originally Posted by Mari

We also found out that fish like to eat frog eggs... So we had to build a small nursery.

Very true. Fish and tadpoles is a nono. We decided not to get new fish anymore when ours died, since we wanted to concentrated on amphibians instead. They'll still have other enemies to contend with... *gives Jinx the cat a warning glare*

[Mari]

I have no idea if ours are from frogs or toads. We'll see that later I guess
*beams like a proud auntie*

Our fish... are not going. They are my fathers precioussss If the frogs survive, they are welcome to join (but not if they make too much noise! ) otherwise... too bad. Or so our father says.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Mari

I have no idea if ours are from frogs or toads. We'll see that later I guess
*beams like a proud auntie*

If the eggs were laid in clusters, then probably frog; if laid in long strings, then likely toad.

Our fish... are not going.

Tell that to the local heron!

[Mari]

We have frog eggs then! Yay!

Our fish... are special. They won't die. Honestly. We have 3 fish who can't swim, one can't even stay underwater and another one is playing dead permanently. At the moment you try to get the seemingly dead one out, he suddenly comes back to life again for a few seconds though... Craaazy fish!

[Nautipus]

That...makes me sad.

[Mari]

Sorry! *hugs*
But they seem to live happily and my father loves 'em all very much, if that's any help.

[Earniel]

Reminds me of my two 'fright fish'. They were cychlids, although I do not know the exact name, and they were spooked so easily that we usually referred to them as the fright fish (schrikvissen). One of them had this tendency where, when I went to bed and turned on the light as I entered my room, he'd go absolutely bunkers: starting to spin, doing back-flips and going generally out of control. And he kept at it, until I had changed and turned of the light again. You wouldn't believe it if you hadn't seen it. I ended up not turning on the light in the evening, for fear he'd hurt himself. Too bad he died.

His brother's not quite as bunkers, although he has either become a drag queen or has become addicted to role play. Seriously, he pretends to be a sajica cychlid, the other two fish in the aquarium. Normally the fright fish is a bright yellow, my sajica's are blue. My fright fish is now blue as well, and he hands around with the sajica's as if he's one of them, whereas before his brother's demise you'd never ever see them at all. Weird, I tell you.

[Mari]

Haha! Fish
We also have "guppies" (really small fish with sometimes bright colours) and they are like sharks. Come near the bowl and they go crazy, expecting to get food. Apparently one of them even jumped out of the bowl once, thinking he was a dolphin or something.

Eärn, you have many amphibians, yes? Do you also have lizards or perhaps a chameleon?

[Earniel]

All the amphibians here are wild ones. I'm not a fan of exotic pets since so many are plucked out of the wild. I could deal with ones bred in captivity, but I do not have the time to give them the attention and care those animals need. And I keep telling my dad he doesn't have so either, although he usually whimpers and whines when I tell him that.

So all the amphibians are in the garden, where they've got six small ponds to pick from. Well, five anyway, the sixth one is fenced, and for the red-cheeked turtles that somehow all stranded at our place. (One's from the river Schelde(!), two were from people who didn't want them anymore, one simply appeared in a nearby garden possibly dumped, the other two we did buy many years ago.) Sadly we're only left with three now, all the others unexpectedly died this winter.

We've got a steady population of resident toads, a variable population of newts (alpenwatersalamander, and kleine salamander, I'm hoping for the 'vinpoot' species one day too) and since a few years a tentative frog population. Usually we've got a few of yearling frogs that disappear each year, but only one adult that has endured for three. Sadly, I fear Jinx, my cat, is sometimes implicated in their disappearance...

The only reptiles we have inside the house are our small mediterranian lizards, about a dozen. But they're getting under stress in the wild, so we may find ourselves morally forced to give up getting new ones in time. The same with our half a dozen mediterrannian tortoises, of which three were born at our house.

If we had the time and space, heck, we'd have plenty more of reptiles, my dad's a big fan of them. Each times he goes to buy crickets for the lizards, he stands there looking longingly at all the tortoises, frogs, gecko's and lizards.

[Mari]

I went to the animal market in Luik once. If that's any indication of how big your animal shops are, I can understand why you have such a variety in animals there.

I'm sorry about the turtles that didn't make it B
ut since they found a piranha in the canals in Leiden, I'm not surprised about finding turtles in the Schelde anymore. Do you suppose it was dumped there, or is it possible it got there on its own? I have no idea where redcheeck turtles normally live...

[BeardofPants]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Sadly, I fear Jinx, my cat, is sometimes implicated in their disappearance...

This is exactly why people should consider making their cats indoor kitties. Safer for the local population, safer for the cat.

[The last sane person]

Oi! Willow, whatever happened to your cat, Jinx? How's he taking the new kitten?

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Mari

I went to the animal market in Luik once. If that's any indication of how big your animal shops are, I can understand why you have such a variety in animals there.

I've never been there, but there is a Petco not too far from here, and the quantities of reptiles that pass through there is both amazing and bothersome.

ut since they found a piranha in the canals in Leiden, I'm not surprised about finding turtles in the Schelde anymore. Do you suppose it was dumped there, or is it possible it got there on its own? I have no idea where redcheeck turtles normally live...

Piranha? Yikes! I don't know whether redcheek is the correct English name, I apparently translated it from the Dutch name in one go (Roodwangschildpad). They're from Florida, originally, if I'm not mistaken. Sold as pets here, then people realise these things actually grow and dump them in nearby ponds and rivers. Now they're no longer sold at all since they have established themselves at ponds and pools here, and what do you know they're carnivorous... But we think that's what happened to the two that were found in the Schelde and the nearby garden. They were both pretty big.

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

This is exactly why people should consider making their cats indoor kitties. Safer for the local population, safer for the cat.

Smaug's an indoor cat but it just wasn't possible to do so with the other two. But we keep them in at night. And they've been here several years already before we started building an amphibian-attractive garden. Besides, if it isn't Jinx who'll eat my frogs, it'll be the neighbouring cats or the few abandonned ones, a passing heron, or even the resident hedgehog. There will always be things that eat frogs. I just wish it wasn't my own thoroughly fed cat.

[Willow Oran]

Oi! Willow, whatever happened to your cat, Jinx? How's he taking the new kitten?

Jinx is doing just fine. He's starting to mellow in his middle-age.

As for how he feels about Mitzi... disgruntled would be the appropriate word. She adores him, and insists on following him everywhere. If he's out, she wants to be out, if he's in, she's in, if he's sleeping on one of our beds, she's up there too... and she likes to mess with his tail when he's eating. It's cute, sometimes he'll hog the wet food and she'll stand by his shoulder with her paw poised to swipe his ear, but she doesn't, she'll just keep it hovering, because she knows he's about 2.5 times her size and thus batting at him would be a very bad idea. He's learning to tolerate her though and he was just as much an annoyance to Leo when he was a kitten so there.

[The last sane person]

Hahah, awe... That's cute.

I HAVE THE MOST AWESOME NEWS! And I can sum it up in three words:

BABY BEARDED DRAGON!!!!

[Mari]

BBD?
Had to google it, but it looks kinda cool! What does it eat? And what do you name it?
And how come you have one?
Guess you won't be done with 3 words after all