@werehatrack that’s true for almost all species of crayfish, but dwarf crayfish (Cambarellus genus) are safe to cohabit with small fish and shrimp… they’re not really predators of anything other than micro-fauna. They’re mostly scavenge.
They’re even safe around each other (as long as they have plenty of nooks and crannies to hide in when the molt). Many larger species of cray will kill and eat their same-species tank mates.
Dwarf crays are safe with other species of dwarf crays (but I kept different species in different tanks because they will mate and hybridize).
There’s a reason I kept dwarf crays than larger species, they could be a fun part of a community tank- and their harmless squabbling amongst themselves was entertaining. They’re also a lot more active than other crays and are frequently out and about exploring rather than hiding away. Much better pets than the bigger guys.
Years and years ago, when my daughter was in high school, we had herps. At one point 6 snakes. One got pneumonia and I gave sub q antibiotics to a snake for 2 weeks
I have two white ball pythons, three corn snakes, two California kingsnakes, a giant day gecko, twenty three tarantulas and a seven-foot black dragon Asian water monitor.
That’s in addition to the five cats, two dogs, five sheep, fifteen ducks and a bunch of different types of chickens.
@jouest@Pony
our daughter had a pet rose hair tarantula for a while. Most of our pics of her when she was young involve some critter or another she had corralled up. Now she has a daughter… who is totally NOT into insects, lizards, frogs etc.
@Pony I think the most we had at one time was 1 tarantula (raised from just hatched), an albino reticulated corn snake, a Sonoran black king snake, a rat snake, 2 African house snakes (adorable little things), a red tailed green rat snake (It had been wild caught(Indonesia if I remember correctly), probably illegally imported and never handled appropriately. no matter how much we tried, we could not get rid of the mites. she eventually died from the stress) several cats (not sure how many at that point, 2 or 3?), whatever lizards she was into at that point, and I think there was a cage of small rodents (not feeders) up in her room at that point too.
She ended up becoming a veterinarian. her class work was a blend of small animal and zoo (it’s how you got the exotics) and her first job was in a clinic that specialized in ‘pocket pets’.
Raised a couple batches of snapping turtles
from eggs. we only kept them until they got about 4-5" and then gave them to a university professor who kept them for educational purposes until they got to about a foot and released them back into the wild before they took somebody’s appendage off.
PSA in general to everyone: Have to be very careful transfering any creature from captivity to the wild, even if native and taken from the wild.
If any equipment used to take care of the animal has been used for any exotic animal in the past you could transfer a hidden bacteria into the wild that might be asymptomatic on the animal being released but be devastating to other species in comes in contact with.
Happens from time to time in the aquarium community. Someone catches native fish and put them in with their tank but it doesn’t work out so they think it’s safe to release native fish back into the wild but now the fish are asymptomatically carrying a non native fungus or bacteria.
@OnionSoup Since it was a university biology professor, I’d like to think they used it as a teaching example of how to release something from captivity back into the wild properly. In fact, I believe that’s why we gave them to him (it was 45+ years ago). But yes, totally agree with harm of the “I don’t like this, it’s too much work, I’ll just stick it in the pond” philosophy of pet ownership.
Bottle feeding a 10 day old kitten. Was called the cat whisperer at animal control as I could handle (was a volunteer) many cats they (employees) could not. Tamed down my 5 mo old feral in 4 days too. At various animal shelters tamed down a number of scared cats so they were adoptable.
Wife has kept innumerable small animals: guinea pigs, chinchillas, prairie dogs, rabbits, hedgehogs, sugar gliders, turtles, ducks, chickens, numerous caged birds. Down to two dogs and one 22 year old dove right now. . . Far cry from the menagerie of years past. She used to be huge into saltwater aquariums, sold live rock to stores.
@Pavlov I had forgotten about the pets I had as a kid. We had cats, turtles, tadpoles (from the pond and we’d release the frogs when they became one), hamsters, gerbils, guinea pig, ant farm, various bugs and butterflies/moths (and sometimes their chrysalis/cocoon that we’d watch and release when it was out and fully dry) we’d catch… We netted a chipmunk in a butterfly net (and transferred it to a paper bag) who lived under the back porch but as kids (no parents involved in this action) decided it was too wild and scared to put it in the gerbil cage so we liberated it from the paper bag it was in. Oh and various fish - some from the store and some we had caught at the farm in the pond or stream. I’ve probably forgotten a few. As an adult just cats and fish at one point when my kid wanted some (they also served as cat TV). Oh and a walking stick (we later liberated).
Ummm, bottle-feeding newborn kittens? Handling injured wild critters without getting shredded? Hand-raising nest-fall freshly-hatched mourning doves to maturity?
Been there, done those…
Not sure if dwarf crayfish and shrimp are weird- I used to keep 4 species of freshwater shrimp and two species of dwarf crayfish.
@OnionSoup Crayfish will eat anything they can catch, so they pretty much need a tank to themselves. (Uh, yeah, I guess I’ve done that, too.)
Oh, and I had a tiny octopus for a few days until I had time to return him to the ocean. (He was a stowaway.)
@werehatrack that’s true for almost all species of crayfish, but dwarf crayfish (Cambarellus genus) are safe to cohabit with small fish and shrimp… they’re not really predators of anything other than micro-fauna. They’re mostly scavenge.
They’re even safe around each other (as long as they have plenty of nooks and crannies to hide in when the molt). Many larger species of cray will kill and eat their same-species tank mates.
Dwarf crays are safe with other species of dwarf crays (but I kept different species in different tanks because they will mate and hybridize).
There’s a reason I kept dwarf crays than larger species, they could be a fun part of a community tank- and their harmless squabbling amongst themselves was entertaining. They’re also a lot more active than other crays and are frequently out and about exploring rather than hiding away. Much better pets than the bigger guys.
@werehatrack picture from the web, not my own… arn’t these guys cute:
Years and years ago, when my daughter was in high school, we had herps. At one point 6 snakes. One got pneumonia and I gave sub q antibiotics to a snake for 2 weeks
@Pony, you have some unusual creatures, don’t you?
@Kyeh They don’t seem all that unusual to me, but I’ll list them below.
Not exactly pets, but my daughter is the head raptor handler at a nature center in Central Oregon.
@macromeh
That’s pretty cool! We have friends whose son was the handler for Nova when he (the bird) was the official ‘War Eagle VII’ at Auburn.
I have two white ball pythons, three corn snakes, two California kingsnakes, a giant day gecko, twenty three tarantulas and a seven-foot black dragon Asian water monitor.
That’s in addition to the five cats, two dogs, five sheep, fifteen ducks and a bunch of different types of chickens.
@Pony twenty three tarantulas!
@Kyeh Yep- I love them. They’re fascinating critters.
@Pony Yes, you’ve posted a few pictures - I’d love to see more! I did hold that tarantula Rosie at the Butterfly Pavilion once, it was cool!
@Pony that’s the stuff
@jouest @Pony
our daughter had a pet rose hair tarantula for a while. Most of our pics of her when she was young involve some critter or another she had corralled up. Now she has a daughter… who is totally NOT into insects, lizards, frogs etc.
@Kyeh @Pony oh
@Pony I think the most we had at one time was 1 tarantula (raised from just hatched), an albino reticulated corn snake, a Sonoran black king snake, a rat snake, 2 African house snakes (adorable little things), a red tailed green rat snake (It had been wild caught(Indonesia if I remember correctly), probably illegally imported and never handled appropriately. no matter how much we tried, we could not get rid of the mites. she eventually died from the stress) several cats (not sure how many at that point, 2 or 3?), whatever lizards she was into at that point, and I think there was a cage of small rodents (not feeders) up in her room at that point too.
She ended up becoming a veterinarian. her class work was a blend of small animal and zoo (it’s how you got the exotics) and her first job was in a clinic that specialized in ‘pocket pets’.
@Pony Oh and some weird tortoise she got from a teacher at the school my ex taught at. that think stunk
@Cerridwyn @Pony
“that thing stunk”
The tortoise,
the teacher,
the school,
or
your ex?
Raised a couple batches of snapping turtles
from eggs. we only kept them until they got about 4-5" and then gave them to a university professor who kept them for educational purposes until they got to about a foot and released them back into the wild before they took somebody’s appendage off.
@ybmuG Cool. I love turtles
PSA in general to everyone: Have to be very careful transfering any creature from captivity to the wild, even if native and taken from the wild.
If any equipment used to take care of the animal has been used for any exotic animal in the past you could transfer a hidden bacteria into the wild that might be asymptomatic on the animal being released but be devastating to other species in comes in contact with.
Happens from time to time in the aquarium community. Someone catches native fish and put them in with their tank but it doesn’t work out so they think it’s safe to release native fish back into the wild but now the fish are asymptomatically carrying a non native fungus or bacteria.
@OnionSoup Since it was a university biology professor, I’d like to think they used it as a teaching example of how to release something from captivity back into the wild properly. In fact, I believe that’s why we gave them to him (it was 45+ years ago). But yes, totally agree with harm of the “I don’t like this, it’s too much work, I’ll just stick it in the pond” philosophy of pet ownership.
Bottle feeding a 10 day old kitten. Was called the cat whisperer at animal control as I could handle (was a volunteer) many cats they (employees) could not. Tamed down my 5 mo old feral in 4 days too. At various animal shelters tamed down a number of scared cats so they were adoptable.
Sadly, he passed away many years ago, but I still have fond memories of him… or was it a her? I was never quite sure.
Wife has kept innumerable small animals: guinea pigs, chinchillas, prairie dogs, rabbits, hedgehogs, sugar gliders, turtles, ducks, chickens, numerous caged birds. Down to two dogs and one 22 year old dove right now. . . Far cry from the menagerie of years past. She used to be huge into saltwater aquariums, sold live rock to stores.
@Pavlov if you told me that was the oldest dove in recorded history I would believe you
@Pavlov I had forgotten about the pets I had as a kid. We had cats, turtles, tadpoles (from the pond and we’d release the frogs when they became one), hamsters, gerbils, guinea pig, ant farm, various bugs and butterflies/moths (and sometimes their chrysalis/cocoon that we’d watch and release when it was out and fully dry) we’d catch… We netted a chipmunk in a butterfly net (and transferred it to a paper bag) who lived under the back porch but as kids (no parents involved in this action) decided it was too wild and scared to put it in the gerbil cage so we liberated it from the paper bag it was in. Oh and various fish - some from the store and some we had caught at the farm in the pond or stream. I’ve probably forgotten a few. As an adult just cats and fish at one point when my kid wanted some (they also served as cat TV). Oh and a walking stick (we later liberated).