With having raised so many children (7.5 children actually), so we have had quite a variety of pets throughout the years!
We’ve had typical pets…cats and fish. We’ve also had less common pets…turtles, aquatic crabs, hamsters, guinea pigs, rats, and snakes.
Pets Teach Life Lessons
Pets have taught the kids responsibility. They have to feed them and water them. Pets have taught them that there are consequences for not being responsible. We had to rehome our guinea pigs after two weeks of reminding my daughters to keep their homes clean. When I walked in my front door and smelled poo (downstairs when they lived in an upstairs room)….it was time to find them a nice new home. (A older lady happily responded to our internet ad for free guinea pigs and was excited to have new pets!)
They taught the children that not everyone can be friends. Trying to make the hamster and pet rat friends did not work out well for either one of them. Both passed away from their less-than-pleasant interaction a couple of days later. (On a side note….my younger daughter won the rat at school. One in thirty chance to win the class pet at the end of school….and she won the silly rat!)
Pets have also taught our children about life and death. It was much easier for them to learn about life and death from pets when they were little and then be able to transfer this knowledge to understanding great-grandma’s and great-grandpa’s funerals.
Rituals
Again with having so many kids we have had various different rituals with our pets. We had a “pet cemetery” in our back yard behind our yard barn for several years. We would bury the animals in cardboard boxes (usually shoe boxes or smaller depending on the animal) and bury them in the back yard. We would talk about life and death, as well as biodegrading. And our second oldest son was usually in charge of digging the holes to bury the critters in.
The exception to this was fish. Dead fish get flushed. However, with five boys in the house that death ritual became pretty exciting. Since our youngest two boys were very little the “fish funeral” consisted of putting the fish in the toilet, peeing on them to say good-bye, and then flushing the toilet. REALLY! They no longer do this (they are 15 and 17 now), but they did that for YEARS!
Currently, we only have snakes and fish.
We have two snakes at home in separate habitats, one fish tank at home, and two fish tanks in my office. The fish are easy. Feed them. Clean tanks periodically. Done.
The snakes take a little more work. We typically purchase feeder mice and rats at the local pet store to feed them. Then we have to keep their water dishes full, tanks clean, and make sure they shed fully when it’s time to shed.
However, no purchasing of mice and rats this summer! We live in the county and are pretty much surrounded by cornfields (we live in Indiana). This summer we’ve experienced field mice in our yard barn (only the second time in fourteen years living there thankfully). I had only one thought when we found mice…FREE FOOD!
Remember mice are food, not friends!
I purchased live mouse traps at the local home improvement store and brought them home.
We placed them around the yard barn and one on the back deck and free food appeared! The live traps worked great! However, I’ve only dealt with feeder mice…I had no idea field mice JUMPED!
So far we have caught…Breakfast, Lunch, Supper, the Hobbit (second breakfast), Afternoon Snack, Appetizer, and Fast Food!
When we have rats or mice as feeders I do not allow the children to name them cute pet names. They are not our new pets or new friends…they are food. So, I typically name them after some meal! So far we have caught seven mice and some are more interesting than others.
All have become food for our pet snacks, besides Fast Food and Appetizer. Appetizer was the baby mouse caught, but he passed away on its own soon after we caught him. (He looked so sick I even tried to feed him…I tried to feed the food!)
Fast Food on the other hand, hid from my husband in the live catch trap from outside, up the stairs, into the room with the snakes, having the trap shaken over one snake tank, back downstairs, and to the kitchen door leading to the outside….then he jumped out of the trap and ran under our stove. Yep! He ran away INSIDE our house! We still have not caught him or seen him again…I’ve convinced my self he found his way outside somehow…I hope I’m right!!
Never-ending adventures!
We definitely have many, many adventures with so many kids and so many pets! My stories could go on and on!
For more about our large family, check out our post about having grandkids while still having teens at home, and some of the tips I have used to make our money stretch a bit further!
What a great post! Literally food for thought. Thanks for sharing.
Good one! I like that!!
Love love love the life lessons that pets teach, children and adults. I like snakes. Can’t handle live feeds though. I don’t eat animals and couldn’t use the mice as food! Snakes gotta eat though.
The live feeds have been very good lessons to the kids though. When they were little the neighbor kids used to come over to watch when we fed the snakes!!
Props to you for taking on pet snake. I know I could never do it. Sounds like you are teaching some really valuable lessons 🙂
They are the easiest pet we have ever owned…besides the fish I guess.
I was raised with pets and definitely learned some great life lessons. And what a beautiful snake!
Thanks! I’m assuming you mean the orange one is pretty. He’s pretty…but super fast and super grouchy! (yes…they have their own distinct personalities!)
Great article and that snake with breakfast was an awesome shot.
Thanks and thanks!!
You are quite brave! I can’t imagine having snakes, but I love the responsibility that having pets teaches kids.
Snakes are easy and don’t bother me at all. I was easier to convince than my husband!
The title grabbed me…wasnt sure where you were going with this! Great post…snake picture eating the mouse made me jump a little.
Not the reaction I was going for LOL….but you are definitely not the first person to jump at my snakes!!
I grew up with pets, and did learn about death that way, it is an invaluable way to learning about the circle of life, as it were!
I agree completely!
Yes, many adventures! It’s nice that the pet snakes eat the mice!
Oh my – that snake! . We do not have any let’s die to allergy issues with my son, but it would be nice to have one…. pets are great for kids for many reasons
I agree. Pets are great for all the lessons they can teach and for the many questions the kids ask about them to learn more.
OMG, I need to have my kids read this! The snake / mice snack photo – nice shot!
Thanks! My husband took that to send me while I was at work. He was enjoying feeding the snakes our free food!
Oh, my! Such an adventure. I applaud you for taking in kids AND pets!!!!
Once we passed three kids there is just not much difference with seven or eight! I always said we lived in a zoo of kids and animals!
A very long time ago, I had a red tailed boa and fed him mice. Great article!
We’ve had snakes for years. I think it would be odd not to have them at this point.
We have always had different types of pets as well. It definitely takes a while to get used to feeding animals to animals, but you are right and it is a great lesson for children.
We have definitely enjoyed our variety of animals throughout the years. I probably miss the guinea pigs the most…I love how they always at the parts of the veggies we cut off (strawberry tops, etc…)
Great post with a lot of good pics. We got my son his first dog last year (he’s six) and he has the sole responisiblity of taking care of him. My husband and I help out of course, but he has started to feed him and take him outside without being asked!
It’s great that he’s learning so quick! Ours still need reminders at times!
We always had local snakes and my husband would take them to the schools to show the kids what good snakes looked like. Too many people kill the good ones.
Taking them to schools sounds like fun. My younger daughter actually took them to show younger kids and teach them about pets and snakes when she did her Girl Scout Gold Award.
So jealous. My wife won’t let me have snakes. LOL! So I have to pretend all the bullsnakes in my 3-acre backyard are my pets. While we have our share of field mice, “my” bullsnakes also love small rabbits, squirrels, and even climb our trees to pillage bird nests.
We’ve had snakes for about ten years. Our second oldest came home asking one day because someone was going to give him a snake, cage, and all and I was definitely good with it. His father needed some convincing though.
I was raised with pets and most certainly enrich our lives giving us those important life lessons. The fish funeral ritual cracked me up! Thanks for sharing!
The fish funeral is one of my favorite pet stories of my kids. They were so very proud when they came up with that one!
What a beautiful big family! I have to say since I am vegan I could never own a snake if I had to feed it mice! Yikes!
Thanks! We’ve gotten used to feeding live animals…we’ve had snakes for about ten years. It was definitely odd at first.