These are my children, Charlie (on the right) and Petiout (pronounced P-two, on the left) . I love these birds like you wouldn't believe. Like I said, these are my children and I treat them as such. They even eat better than I do...all organic. I have to say many of us don't give animals enough credit, thinking they are 'just animals'. Well, these two have amazing personalities, and are very different from each other. Charlie (believe it or not she was named before I got her) doesn't like to be picked up much, but loves to be pet. Petiout dislikes being pet, but loves to be picked up and cuddled. Charlie tends to get VERY jealous of Petiout and can get bitey if she gets too close. But Petiout, while normally VERY docile sometimes shows her tough side by trying to bite Charlie.

Once, both of them were sitting on my shoulders while I was reading, Charlie got VERY mad that Petiout was there and went the bite teh nearest thing to show her displeasure...which was my lip. She didn't mean to bite me on purpose...birds tend to lose their heads in times of high stress and excitement. Of course I was mad at her, but amazingly she realised what she had done and walked over to me giving little kisses as ifto say, "I'm sorry."

Oh and how do I know Charlie is a 'She'? :)

Interesting update:

Both of my girls are rescues. Now interestingly enough, I met Charlie's old mommies (yes, pural) since I've been running the store! Charlie was born in Florida and was the personal pet of the bredder's daughter. Apparently Charlie was far too screamy, so she was given away to some other folks here in town. I forget why she was given up a second time, but she ended up in Terri's Pet Stop (the previous store that I bought out) where I met her and had to have her.

Pacha (Tchiripacha is the full name) is a "Russian Tortoise"...aka Horsfields tortoise or the steppe tortoise. Tortoises aren't extremely smart, but they are full of character and curious little buggers. They love to explore and wander. Thus he has a pretty big pen I made for him in my apartment. I actually have plans to make it a two story pen eventually.

Please read my comments on buying tortoises at other pet stores in the "New friends" section. It will save you LOTS of money in the long run...trust me.

This is Fantus. He's the coolest lizard I've ever owned. He is a mali Uromastix lizard...aka the dabb lizard. These guys are SUPER evolved for the desert. In fact i don't even have to give him water! He gets all the misture he needs from fresh greens. And if thats not cool enough, he hibernates. Whats so special about hibernating. Well since he's from the desert, he has to have a cage temperature of well over 100 degrees F. So for hibernation...well I just unplug the lights and he actually sleeps at normal room temperature!!!

This is my pair of African House Snakes...Ana (left) and Sekumbe (right).

I've had And for a number of years...going on 5 now I think. When I first bought her, she was thinner than my pinkie finger-nail. As you can imagine I had some problems feeding her at first since most pinkie mice were still too big for her to swallow. I actually had to go to a less reputable store to find food for her. See those other stores bring in anything they can and charge for it. This actually worked to my advantage as they had pinkies that shouldn't have even been sold at that size. Anyways, after 5 years, you can see she got pretty big.

Sekumbe I bought simply to breed to Ana. My wife calls him the "Magical disappearing snake", simply because he has escaped from my snake rack twice alread, and DAMN he squeezes through impossibly small holes. The funny thing is, he always reappears inside the rack after a few days. Sekumbe is actually heterozygous for Albinism...although I'm not a big fan of albino house snakes.

Past Friends:

This is Jane...the first snake I ever owned. Unfortunately she died from some mysterious circumstance. As far as I can tell it was some sort of poisoning...I suspect is was from the unglazed flower pot dish I used for water. I found out a while alter that sometimes the pots have nasty chemicals in them. Needless to say i only use actually pet friendly dished now.

She was a Rosy Boa. One of only two boa species in the US...the other being the rubber boa. I find these boas to be among the most beautiful snakes, and they come is LOTS of colors. These snakes are found in various area in the south west US and each locale tends to have a different color.

This is Edgar. I originally bought him for my classroom (did i ever mention I was once a high school science teacher?), but since I no longer teach, I decided to put him in the store. Well lo and behold someone wanted to buy him. So I let him go. he was a very nice snake...only ever bit me if I smelled like a rat. So now he's living in a much bigger tank than I had him in, and he's doing great!

FYI, Edgar is a Mexican Black Kingsnake. I called him Edgar because he sucked down mice and rats like a Hoover. Get it? Hoover? Edgar? Eh? Eh? :)