Critter Corner v. 8 Pet Capybaras

I have a thing for strange pets. The strangest pet I have ever had was an African pygmy hedgehog. His name was Alf. He was given to our family by a friend. He was friendly and easy to take care of. We really enjoyed him.

Anyway, a while ago I found out about capybaras as pets. Capybaras are 100 pound rodents that live in the grasslands of South America. I have no idea why someone decided to start breeding them as pets. One of the most famous ones, Caplin Rous, lives right here in Texas. He even has his own blog. Here is a video of him doing tricks.

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Chickens

We are excited to be hatching some eggs in an incubator. Some friends of ours who live on a small farm invited us over. While we were there, they offered to let us try to hatch some eggs that their chicken had laid. They loaned us the incubator, too.

It took me a while to get the incubator set up with proper temperature and humidity, but now we are making a go of it. I hope to have some news of chicks on the 25th.

Dogs
When we went to my in-laws for the 4th, they gave our dogs a dose of Frontline Plus.
I must say that this stuff WORKS. It is 30 days later and they are still flea free. With our usual stuff, I was still combing 10-30 fleas off of them a day. It is very expensive though. About $45 for a three month supply.

Crawdads
There are 5 baby crawdads that survived to this point. 1 is huge (about 1" long), 2 are medium (3/4" long), and 2 are small (1/2" long). These are guesses of course. I have no idea why they have grown at different rates.

The mother crawdad died. She was trying to molt and didn't have the strength. Sort of a sad way to go if you ask me.

All of the other pets are largely the same.

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Fort Worth Low Cost Spay and Neuter

Today the kids and I took our dogs to the Fort Worth Low Cost Spay and Neuter Clinic for their shots. Last year they were neutered there also. If you live in the Fort Worth Area (they also have a clinic in Denton), I highly recommend it. Here is a schedule of the costs for dogs (cats are similar).

Rabies: $5
DHLPP: $10
Bordetella:$10
Heartworm Test: $20
Frontline: $10
Heartworm Preventative: $20-30

Spay
Under 50 lbs. $50
50-80 lbs. $55
Over 80 lbs. $80

Neuter
Under 50 lbs. $40
50-80 lbs. $50
Over 80 lbs. $70

The other advantage of going here is the short time it takes. We were in and out in probably 10 minutes with two dogs.

Critter Corner V. 1

I am adding a new feature to the blog. In it, I hope to discuss small pets of all sorts. Today we will start with an introduction to our current pets in order of adoption/purchase.

We own two small dogs named Shadow and Little Dog. They are brothers from a litter of my mother-in-law's dogs. They are poodle, Maltese, Chihuahua dogs that we call yapperdoodle. Watching the Dog Whisperer (on DVD) has helped us get them past many of their fears (culverts for example) and their fearful barking at every dog or person they meet. They still love to bark, but at least company and walks are great.

Cheep-Cheep (yellow) and Pete (Blue) are our two parakeets. Cheep-Cheep will sit on my daughter's finger, but Pete (a newer arrival) is still very skittish. We leave their cage door open when we are here, but they hardly ever want to go anywhere. When they do, they are quite funny to watch exploring.

Two crawdads (crayfish) live in a large plastic container in our kitchen. The boy only has one claw and the girl has no antenna. They were the control animals in an experiment where my husband works. When the experiment was over, my husband brought them home. They molt every few months. This makes them vulnerable. In fact, that is how the boy lost his claw. He had just molted when he got in a fight with the big one (who later died). They had babies once but they all died and we never knew why.

Fuzzy the guinea pig is quite the treat aficionado. He loves to eat lettuce (not iceberg), carrots, parsley, apple cores, etc. If he hears the refrigerator door open, he starts the whistling just in case you forgot that he loves to eat.

Ollie Pumpkin is our male high-energy, miniature lop rabbit. We let him and Fuzzy out in the hall on an old table cloth every day. He loves to run and jump over Fuzzy and do twisting jumps. He is a very sweet boy, but he does not enjoy snuggling and being held.

The kids and I recently made Fuzzy and Pumpkin Ollie a C and C cage. It took us a while, but was worth the effort. The entire 2'x7' cage cost about $20 because we found the metal parts at a garage sale for $5.

Last and probably least, is my son's new acquisition. A snail. We owned a really great snail named Jesse Brown (in the picture) for about 2 years before it died. This new one is a different kind so we will have to see if we keep it our not. So far it seems to be doing great in its little plastic home.

Well, I hope you guys enjoy the new Critter Corner. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them.