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singularuniverse
MY TIME HAS COME! SO, I have had basically every pet under the sun. Big, smol, creepy, crawly, cuddly. So on and so forth! I have dogs, a pig, cats, and more, but I will stick to the smol ones I have had over the years. Enjoy the info dump XD
My favorites (creepies and crawlies included):
1.) Rats. Very fun, easily trained, not too smelly, small, but large enough to handle comfortably. They can eat basically everything and they have lovely personalities. They seem to do decent in pairs or alone. Easy starter pet, and not too much of an investment because they only live about two years (I've had seven. Between one and two years is a normal lifespan for them). They love to climb, do tricks, share your favorite foods (I never bought rat food for mine. I have a decent diet, so I just shared my food with my rats and they always did great!). 10/10 my favorite starter pet. They're really wonderful, though I have found unneutered males to be a bit testy. Great in pairs, small groups, or alone (so long as they get lots of attention--this goes for most animals).
2.) Tarantulas. Here me out before you skip. I've always had a tense peace with spiders, so when I got a brachypelma albopilosum (Curly hair. They lit have poodle floof), I was a wee bit nervous. Turns out they're great! Low maintenance. Cheap, and they are display animals, not cuddlers, so you will never ever have to even touch it! (Bonus because too many legs. On a similar note: they live these freaking adorable little footprints). I feed mine one cricket a week...and that's basically all the care they need besides a little bit of water and the usual. You can make your own cage (with a tupperware basically), they incapable of making sound, super easy to feed, and are really cool to look at!
It is AMAZING to see them molt and dig their little burrows. My Kaimides grew over an inch in one molt (which is impressive because all that was squeezed into one smol body). It's surprisingly cute to see them web up their little houses and excavate their areas, and they're super easy, so you can leave for a month and not worry about care. However you can only have one per cage. Males usually only live a year or so, but females of different species can live for decades! There are a lot of visually stunning and easily available starter species
3.) Mice! My sister and I have two (in a two story Kaytee crittertrail with accessories). They're cute and pretty cheap but smell really bad. Two mice smell worse than basically anything else except ferrets.
4.) Guinea pig! They like big cages, so beware the ones you find in stores unless it's big. (We have a Midwest cage and it's easy to set up, clean, and it's ginormous! Big enough for two). They live up to ten years and seem to do well in pairs or alone. (Gummy pig is my third one. She is four. Our first boys lived to four or five [they got sick] and we rescued one who was already old to begin with.) Super easy and fun. They making beeping and whistling noises, but are pretty quiet!
5.) If you have time, space, and money, FERRETS! They're dolls, but they smell and can be UBER destructive. They do eat dry cat food just fine, so that's easy enough at least. I have had three. They're super cuddly, playful, and absolutely wild. So much fun! My Lily loved collecting rubber bouncy balls and putting them in shoes, and cinnamon flavored candies!
6.) Hermit crabs. Super fun and cute! I had a bunch when I was younger and remember them being just the coolest little guys, and they even kinda had personalities.
