What is the strangest or most unusual animal you've ever seen/had as a pet?

I mean it isn’t terribly strange, but my sister had a beloved chinchilla until recently. He passed away of old age, but he was an awesome little guy. It’s not unheard of to keep chinchillas, but I haven’t met many people that actually own one, aside from her.

They are really darn cute.

The weirdest pet I have seen is a child on a leash. Hell, let’s throw shock collars on them so they can’t scream and shout too!

I once had a big centipede that I kept as a pet. It lived for about 3 weeks in a jar.

Skunks as pets still do not make sense to me. They say the stink-sacs are removed, but I still can smell them. Ugh. But, they are cute toddling at the end of a leash.

Stray cats are some badass mofos.

One of these http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-8748980-australian-bearded-dragon-pogona-vitticeps-lizard.php

A relative had a fish tank of piranha fish.

@Pied_Pfeffer I knew these dudes that had piranha fish, damn long ago. They were gray and small, but apparently pretty fucking psycho when you fed them, or so I was told.

I had an Iguana named Yoda for a few years.

One of my best friends used to have pet peacocks and a baby skunk.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I met this chick who had two pigeons in her house. Fucked up pets are cool lol.

I apologize for my answer, I read strangest as ’‘strongest’’, which is why I was confused about tiny pigs, but then didn’t think about it again after I read about boas. Sorry.

You name it, I’ve probably had it. :>) A llama, chinchillas, tarantulas, iguanas, parrots, pigeons, chickens, quail guinea fowl, a peacock, etc. etc. I would really like to have a yak. Or a reindeer. But the strangest pet experience I’ve had is probably having a goat give birth in my bathroom.

I had a pretty big colony of Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches as pets for about 7 years. Sometimes they kept me up at night fighting with each other over their pieces of bark, hissing and scuttling around. I would have to bang on the lid for them to stop. They also had mites, which don’t harm them, but were a bit gross to me. So I would use the “Shake-n-Bake” method of removing them. I would put a roach in a bag of flour and lightly shake it. It made the mites fall off, but totally pissed the roaches off. Poor things. Haha.
Now I just have a Betta fish and some African Dwarf Frogs.

1. Meerkats
2. Lions

@crisw I’m heading out to a yak ranch this Thursday to stay for a week. They raise yak for the market, but do keep a few for pets. I’ll be interacting with horses, chickens, and of course, lots of yak. I’ll let you know how it goes! :D

My mom had a pet skunk as a child in the 50s.

Cecopia caterpillar that I raised into the most amazing moth…until my boa constrictor ate it!

I had a pet tarantula for 17 years. She was the most laid-back spider ever. And they weren’t pets but I’ve had binturongs, kinkajous, servals, caracals, ocelots, and tigers in my house.

@Symbeline The relative’s Piranha were a bit larger than an index card and were a dull silvery grey with a pink tinge on their lower side. I only recall observing them being fed once, and while not an attractive sight, it wasn’t a feeding frenzy like seen in documentaries and fictional movies. I’ve witnessed crazier feeding frenzies here on Fluther. :)

My darling Chinese gander ‘Marwyn.’

If someone had told me 15 years ago that my all time favorite pet would be a goose, I’d never have believed them!

Marwyn just turned 13 and can easily live into his 20’s, if not longer.

He hangs in the hot tub with me, comes in the house and tugs at the loaf of bread in the bread bowl on a wicker shelf in my kitchen. Likes me to play my drums and sing to him, goes on walks with me and is the best ” dog” I have ever had. :-)

An alligator snapping turtle that weighed about 40 pounds. Not technically my pet, but I was her caretaker at the college biolab I used to work at. I miss her. We also had Madagascar Hissing cockroaches, Meal worms, mice, a king snake, a ball python, three bearded dragons, two desert iguanas, an ornate box turtle and three chuckwallas .

I had a pet snail ofr two weeks. I could NOT get him to follow me. I tried everything I knew, but nothing worked. He also would not learn any tricks, would not come when I called or sit on my lap. I finally gave up and took him back to where I found him. It was a sad good bye, but it was for the best. I never even found out what he liked to eat.

I’ve not had a strange pet myself (although plenty of people I knew thought I was strange for keeping rats). One of my friends once had a pet scorpion.

LOL! What an amazing array of great stories/answers/anecdotes…..!! It was great to read them all. From scorpions, tarantualas,to alligators…to hissing cockroaches. (I had cockroaches as pets…when I lived in a dorm in college….but they weren’t exactly by choice!)

@Coloma…...Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Thanks for contributing and answering….lurve coming to all!

DR

@8Convulsions Cockroaches! Ugh! Well, that takes the cake.

I was going to say how much fun we had as kids with the burro’s and sheep – not really unusual unless you’re a city kid. Burro’s are fun to ride. You don’t even need a saddle or harness. The sheep are hilarious. My sister and I would calmly walk into the flock, and then each of us would hop on the back of a sheep. They would all TAKE OFF together, running so close together that if it wasn’t for the wool padding, they would have crushed our legs between their bodies. We did it rodeo-style, trying to beat the record of how long we could stay on.

I had a pig who’s name was Chester. Wasn’t a strange animal but someone sold him to us and he wasn’t even a week old. We didn’t know anything about pigs at the time but he was cute so we got him. He couldn’t make his own body heat! Poor thing. We kept him for a month or more and he had to sleep in bed with me since he couldn’t keep warm. He was so cute. He died a month after we got him because the people who had him before us fed him dog food which tears up a piglets stomach. I think he might’ve lived through that, but he ate poisonous berries. I was heartbroken after my little friend died.

@iluak A sad lesson learned, not to get an animal without doing serious research into it’s needs. RIP little piglet.
People often feed cows milk to baby animals, orphaned wildlife, a serious no no. It’s easy to kill things with ignorant kindness.