They're like those little rubber tubes full of water that squirm out of your hand, but with fur and organs instead of water.

I find that cute more than evil.

Until you're just trying to fill up the water bottle because you know it's thirsty and it's your turn to do it and it's the class pet and oh hey look Boofster is coming up to say hi how cute oh no HE'S FUCKING BITING ME AND WON'T LET GO OH GOD NO IT FUCKING HURTS

Happened to me and four other kids with our class pet, Boofster the hamster in fourth grade. Figured he was just an asshole. Elvis dated a girl in high school with hamsters. They attacked him for no reason.

I have all sorts of "Hamsters are horrible, just step on them" stories. And by all sorts, I mean several. Anyway, I hate them.

A hamster nearly bit my finger to the bone...rats are better pets.

Agreed x 10. Rats are AMAZING pets. I've never heard of a hamster bonding to its owner to the point of becoming depressed if it doesn't receive adequate attention the way rats will. All I hear about and have seen is sleeping, pooping, running in wheels, and stuffed cheeks. Again, fuck hamsters.

I've had loads of hamsters, and they only ever bit when they were untamed babies. Or when your fingers are coated in chocolate, but then it is both fully deserved and required.

I wonder why hamsters are so popular as pets considering how stupid and un-affectionate they are.

I used to have a rat who spent most of his time sitting on my shoulder or up my sleeve. I grew quite attached to him, it's a shame that they normally don't live past 5 years. :(

My sister has guinea pigs; they're lazy, obese and boring. When they are hungry for fresh veggies they will squeak - which usually persists from 5pm to 11pm. Admittedly I do have a soft spot for them.

I'd love to have lizard pet of some sort =D

Probably because kids don't realise how boring they are before they are given them. And parents like them because when they inevitably drop dead, they can be easily replaced without the kids being any wiser. If they tried to replace a rat, on the other hand, the kids would immediately notice a change in behaviour.

Hamsters are illegal in my state because they may escape and could be a threat to the pristine Australian ecosystem. Though mice and rats are perfectly legal.

I would love to have a rat for a pet but, unfortunately, my mother wrongly thinks that all rats are germ ridden, evil bags of venom that are Satan's familiars. I've told her on countless occasions that she is wrong but I think it has something to do with her fear more than anything else.

So I'm going to have to leave home if I want a rat as a pet.

I've had reptiles as pets on and off for the past 14 years or so. Mainly lizards. I've kept some pretty advanced species. Let me know if you're ever seriously considering taking the plunge, as people in a pet shop tend to give horrible advice that's more skewed towards making a sale rather than the well being of the animal.

For the record, rats should be kept in pairs. At the minimum. A single rat will need to be bonded with its owner, as as I mentioned it will become seriously depressed if it doesn't receive the attention it needs. Which is several hours per day. These guys live in groups/societies of hundreds, so keeping a rat by itself isn't the nicest thing to do.

Hmm, I would like to have two but any more would be overkill for myself. Question about that though. Say the pair of rats bond with the owner, will they still get depressed if the owner doesn't spend enough time, over an elongated period of time, with them even though they have each other for company?

Yeah, this is one of the reasons why my rat spent much of its time with me. We bought a pair from an animal rescue centre - One of them wasn't really used to human company and ended up escaping by wriggling out of my hand, then out of my open bedroom window (on the ground floor) and was never seen again.

I imagine they'd end up bonding to each other if the owner doesn't spend time with them. As long as they have someone to bond to they're pretty quick to forget.

If you buy a pair of rats as babies and spend an equal amount of time with both of them then they'll bond with each other and you. That way they'll have each other to play/socialize with when you can't, but will be thrilled to see/spend time with you. There's nothing more adorable than walking into a room and seeing your rats stand up on their hind legs so they can grab the wires/bars of their enclosure/pen and shove their noses through because they recognize you and want to come out NOW.

I know that rats are cheap to buy but how expensive are they to keep?

Because I don't want to derail this thread and have it turn into a mega-rat thread, I'll direct you here and here. Although in my experience keeping them has been relatively cheap. I've always made their food by buying the most healthy ingredients in bulk and mixing it myself in large quantities. You can build their enclosure, which should be large, or order one from this manufacturer, which is who I [and my friends] have used with great success. I personally like the R-695 model.

EDIT: Although you should never take on the responsibility of any pet thinking it's going to be a 'cheap' relationship. A few months back Dorian and I had to spend roughly three hundred dollars on emergency vet bills for our rabbit who, until that point, was costing us about twenty dollars every two months. It's generally a good idea to have an emergency fund set aside for any animal you keep, because emergencies do happen.

599 US dollars.

That's because mice and rats have already ruined the "pristine" Australian ecosystem.

This is true - My family has spent over £800 on keeping my cat alive and healthy when he had various injuries or infections. During his lifetime he's been such a good companion to me though. You can't put a pricetag on that.

And you know what? Dinosaurs are fucking awesome. They found the fossilized remains of a hadrosaur's heart a while back. Guess what? Four fuckin' chambers. Four. Know what that means? It means that motherfucker was warm blooded.

Dinosaurs are fucking amazing. We're all talking about dinosaurs, now. What, you're talking about pets? Psh, you uncool and probably virginal losers. Dinosaurs are now the topic of discussion.

Playing fetch with a T-Rex would be pretty cool.

"Aw Rex, did you eat the neighbours? THAT'S A BAD BOY!"

Awesome.

I'll take you up on that.

I have a budgie. It is very noisy, tame so long as you are having lunch in "his" room at the time, and one afternoon he was very enthusiastic about copulating with me.

Clever girl.:p

I had a budgie when I was about six or seven. I named him Tiny Tim [after the singer/musician, not the Dickens character]. Anyway, no matter how hard I tried, or how much I left him alone, Tiny Tim had nothing but hate in his little Budgie heart when it came to the subject of me. My friend Kevin? Absolute love.

I eventually got tired of being chased/pecked by this feathered turd, so we [meaning my mom and Kevin's mom who were also good friends] decided Tim should go live with Kevin.

Apparently one evening they were letting Tim flutter around for some exercise, and he landed on the top of Kevin's pet rat cage. The rat was most displeased, and bit Tim's foot. Tim got an infection and died. Kevin was heart broken. Secretly I was thrilled, and felt that in some strange rat-minion way, justice had been served. I made sure to give his rat Genine a treat every time I came over after that.

Also:

I tried to figure out what it was you were referencing, and all I could really dig up was an original article from 2000. But then I found this which seems like bad news. Especially because I was excited by your post. So hopefully I'm in the wrong corner of the internet and you can point me in the right direction.

We had a parrot, too, an Amazon. He was in the family before me, so my arrival was bewildering to one who used to be the baby of the family. My brother was the last straw and he went off all children and me after that. Full of personality, very possessive of my dad in that unfortunate parrot way. Bitey. God I loved him. He died suddenly from no discernible cause possibly a virus.

Anyway, all my horrible experiences with pet birds has made me want one of my own more than anything. After all the practice with goldfish and hamsters, birds are the endgame of pets as far as I'm concerned. Especially parrots, which are intelligent and inquisitive enough to be inconvenient and can outlive their owners if nothing goes wrong.

Did you or your parents have non-stick/teflon cookware? I've read online that when heated/used for cooking, teflon is horribly toxic to birds.

As far as owning a bird goes, probably won't happen for me as much as I like them. Dorian doesn't like birds. Well, she appreciates their intelligence/charm and beauty, but dislikes the mess and noise they have the potential to make.

However I've been interested in Falconry since I was fairly young, and seem to have stirred an interest in her as well. Obtaining the required permits and licenses is a difficult and long process [two years at least], but it's something I'd like to do at some point in my life. I'm pretty much in love with the idea that your Raptor can just up and leave during a hunt/free flight at any point in its life should it so choose, and is really more of a partner/companion than a 'pet'.

Intentional sarcasm. If we have rats, mice, rabbits, foxes, feral pigs, deer, camels, feral cats, feral dogs brought by the black men, feral dogs brought by the white men, cane toads and fire-ants (off the top off my head) running around our forests (except for camels they run around our deserts) I doubt allowing pet hamsters would be too problematic.

How are tortises lifespan-wise anyway?

To be fair, dingos have been here long enough that they're now a core part of the ecosystem. And they're awesome creatures, when they're not eating babies.