Well if you get tired of chicken farming how about Kangaroos?

[walkswithdog]

I saw a keeper after he made a mistake handling Roos at the Zoo. He was wearing shorts to show off the fifteen inch gash running down his thigh with dozens of stitches. It was ghastly purple and yellow and green bruised as well.

Working summers at the Zoo cured me of a whole lot of "cute" and "beautiful" exotic critters. Addicted me to others. I have a friend who's dad was a big cat vet. Oh my. I haven't done it because I insist on keeping other animals but I'd stay overnight at their house, just to lay on the couch with his cougar and feed the tiger. The Tiger stayed outdoors. There was a clouded leopard cub at the zoo the first year I volunteered, I fell deeply in love. He PURRED and oh my the coat. I'll never forget that feeling.

But I still remember my friends house furnishings. When a cougar decides to do the house cat thing and snag things with those claws furniture and walls don't stand up all that well. The nice things survived in the rooms she didn't get to go in.

Exotics are a nice idea. Up close and personal with your body and your stuff, it's not often compatible.

 

[Harley's girl]

I had a friend who had a cougar as a pet. She nearly went broke feeding him. But she kept him until the day he died at the ripe old age of 17. She says she misses him dearly but will never get another one.