Every pet is different, whether it’s their breed or species. But, what truly makes a pet unique, especially when it comes to its lifestyle and personality, is such an important thing to consider when one has a pet.
Senior Layla Morrow owns a ball python named Bobo who she has had for a year and a half now. While a cat, dog, or even a pig needs to be fed multiple times daily, Bobo only needs to be fed once a week. But what makes his diet truly different from other animals is how he prefers his food to be prepared.
“A lot of people feed their snakes frozen mice, but Bobo is specific. He likes live mice and won’t eat frozen, dead mice,”Morrow said.
While one may also assume snakes need large amounts of attention and care, Bobo actually requires the opposite.
“You’re supposed to clean their tank monthly, like fully changing their bedding,” said Morrow. “ And making sure their water’s full, and their shedding, and the process is going fine.”
For snakes, shedding is very important for their health because it is a sign of growth. While Bobo started out as two feet long at around five months, Bobo has grown to around three to four feet, showing he is quite the healthy snake.
“He’s always hiding unless it’s nighttime — then he comes out and is wandering all around his tank. Once you get him out, he’ll stay in a ball for a minute and he won’t stop moving,” Morrow said. “He actually escaped one time, he made it all the way downstairs. It was very scary.”
It’s clear, while Bobo may be quite the introvert, his curious nature and adventurous spirit makes him quite the handful.
However, while Bobo’s routine is a lot easier, bearded dragons require more attention. Junior Mackenzie McPherson owns a bearded dragon named Fred, whom she has had for almost a year, and every day has a very specific routine for keeping him healthy and happy.
“In the morning, as soon as I wake up, I turn on his lights, tell him ‘It’s time to wake up,’ and make him a little salad. I put it in his little food bowl for him to eat while I’m at school, and change his water while I’m making his salad. When I get home from school, I’ll put a couple more vegetables in there [his bowl], and at night, I’ll feed him mealworms.”
The lamps McPherson turns on are actually important to Fred’s unique condition. Bearded dragons are cold-blooded, meaning they are unable to regulate their body temperature naturally and must rely on external sources of heat to survive.
“I wouldn’t say he’s needy, but he needs more than what a dog would need,” McPherson said. “You can just feed a dog dog food, but you have to research what you’re feeding him and understand why he needs what he needs.”
While Fred is interesting and has many unique features, maintaining his health can be a little expensive.
“I spent $400 on his tank and everything that he needed, like all the accessories, and I think he was about $100,” McPherson said. “I need to upgrade his tank soon, he’s in a 50 gallon right now, but I need to get him a 120-gallon, and that’s expensive.”
Senior Sophie Poenicke, currently owns seven chickens, but the youngest two are truly the most unique in the coop. Evangeline and Pearl are silkie chickens.
“They’re a lot more chiller than the other chickens and they look really, really different. When you think of a chicken you think about regular feathers. But their feathers look like fur,” Poenicke said.
Not only that, but because her family uses the eggs her chickens lay. A special and safe ingredient is added to their food.
“They eat rocks with their food to make their eggshells harder,” Poenicke said.
It’s these unique traits that make these pets so interesting and admired by people everywhere, but it’s also through this popular appreciation that led these students to have such wonderful pets.
“When I was younger, between the ages four and seven, I always loved watching Kate [her mothers friend] feed him [Kate’s pet snake] and play with him. He was super sweet too and super gentle, and I just loved them.”
