Thursday, June 11, 2009

A mouse in the house

Back in the day when I was a new wife and mum living in my first home, a little two bedroom flat, my husband (the ideas man) decided to get himself a pet - a snake... I wasn't too concerned about this although I insisted that the snake's living quarters be made impenetrable. Being in the woodwork field, he had soon whipped up a decent sized wooden box with a sliding glass front for access to the snake.

The supplier of the snake was a client who was also a snake breeder and who had cases of poisonous snakes lining his bedroom! I kid you not. I saw this with my own eyes before I hop skipped it out of that room. He also had another little associated hobby of breeding mice although this he did in a shed at the end of the garden.

So hubby comes home with the snake which he pops into the box and two mice, one of which he pops into the box with the snake. While I wasn't watching, the snake swallowed the mouse. Its nature I know but not in my house - I wasn't impressed. So now the snake was fed and not due for another meal for a week or so. What to do with the other mouse?
Can you believe that I ended up buying a cage and accessories for this other mouse which ended up becoming a pet and lived with us for about another 2 years, in fact long after the novelty of the snake (which spent 100% of its time under the paper lining of the box) had worn off and the snake had been released back into nature, over the precast boundary wall of the block of flats.

I am an animal lover but I do not like pets to which you have to feed other pets. So bye bye snakey.

18 comments:

  1. Awww. I think I probably would have ended up keeping the mouse, as well. They are cute little buggers!

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  2. Oh yes, no snakes in the house. They are hard to pet.

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  3. Oh yes I agree with you. I just couldnt do it. Nature is great but out in the wild and not in my home.

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  4. LMAO awwww poor snake. And poor mouse..... we are forever watching out that the cat doesnt eat (or just play with) the hamster.

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  5. I love this....I can't say we don't have such creatures here...but they belong to my family, NOT me. I don't do any feeding.;0

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  6. I can't stand mice. They freak me out totally. I also hate olives. I have no clue why. dogs, give me ten of those any day

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  7. He he sounds like me. T is dying for a snake but I wont have an animal in my home that eats other animals it goes against the grain!

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  8. I am in total agreement with you. I wouldn't be able to buy pets to feed to other pets. It's too creepy and cruel.

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  9. I've read that snakes and other reptile pets can't distinguish their owners from other people, hence there is no bonding with them whatever. So what's the point in making pets of them? When you think of it, from the entire animal kingdom, only a very few species actually like us. In fact, we're so needy that we put up with cats, who can take us or leave us.

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  10. I so agree with you. I want a pet I can pet.

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  11. Oh my, I would cry my eyes out if I had to feed an animal to another animal!

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  12. I hope my girls never ask for a snake for a pet. My nephew has one and he feeds them mice. Sometimes they buy them frozen. Yuk!

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  13. That snake is rolling his beady little eyes as we speak...

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  14. Well, you actually can pet snakes. I used to pet mine all the time. Nor do you need to get live critters to feed them. They're just as happy with the frozen mice...after they're thawed of course.

    That said, I do rather prefer furry things as pets. They do tend to bond better.

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  15. Snakes are boring. Feeding little fish to big fish is fun.

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  16. Yay! Glad to hear you saved the mouse and got rid of the snake... yeee-uck!

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  17. It's been a while, I've started writing again. I had to delete the old blog since someone got the address and I didn't feel comfortable with them having it. I'm now retyping the old blog from scratch. You don't need to follow it, but I thought I'd at least explain.

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  18. I cant believe that my readers are still commenting when I haven't posted in so long but I thank you all. Griever - thanks for letting me know and please let me have your website address when you are ready because I would like to follow.

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