Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 19, 2012 - 12:07pm PT
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Not really off-topic, since squirrels and monkeys, for example, are far better climbers than humans will ever be.
Relativity is at play...the squirrels' tiny claws (and monkeys' tiny fingertips) make what appear to be microscopic "handholds" become beefy jugs and mailslots. Witness the squirrel as he quickly climbs his tree.
I'm pondering a mail-order Squirrel Business, an exotic new business line. At issue are city codes and such that prohibit harboring "wild animals" ...but the plan is to semi-domesticate the common tree squirrel, which are plentiful in my backyard. Sending live animals thru the US Mail is also quite common.
Sound stupid? Not really! There's nothing new under the Sun, so entrepreneurship these days must lay squarely on the lunatic fringe (like Chessler). The pet market is saturated, current revenue streams have become diverse. It's all hit or miss. Also, as the Recession continues and society becomes more dysfunctional, people become more neurotically fixated, obsessive about their pets--and people have become bored with just cats and dogs.
When I was a kid you could still buy a monkey in a pet shop, a Rhesus or a Macaque. I'm looking into this too...not sure you can send a live monkey thru the US Mail though.
There used to be a rock climber who owned a rock climbing monkey. Seriously, the monkey could free solo just about any 5.11 face...if it got truly gripped the monkey would sh#t little spheroid turds that would dribble down the rock face. I think the guy was training his monkey to clip the first or second bolts on sport routes.
Anyway, I'm trying to gauge general interest in this, one of about half a dozen business ventures of mine.
Can I put you down for a squirrel?
I'm also thinking about capturing the noisy parrots that live around my house and putting them in a box and sending them to people. Parrots in a pet store cost about $500 apiece!
I had a pet squirrel I saved as a baby, so I can give you the scoop.
Baby squirrels are pretty cute and cuddly and mine was tame when he was little. As he got bigger he got more dangerous. Every vertical object (including humans) = TREE to them. They are fast and have long claws. My arms neck and face were covered in bloody scratches for months and he destroyed the house. I'm lucky I still have both eyes. The minute he hit puberty he went totally feral and couldn't be handled at all, so no... they do not make good pets.
I just turned mine loose in the yard and let him go free.
A squirrel is a good first project for a beginning student taxidermist. Not much skin to treat with alum; easy wire frame mount. Remember to buy some nice beady glass eyes before you begin the project. Change out the old blade in your scalpel too.
i once had a golden mantle squirrel for a pet.. The dood just couldnt help but nip me when hand feeding him snacks! It was like he was perfectly at home for a few nibbles, then he would sneak in a little nibble off my hand or fingers! Never did get used to that.
I have a neighbor who rehabs squirrels in our area- they get slaughtered on the roads regularly around here. She's been doing it for many years, and the local community knows this well, so she has dealt with dozens and dozens of them over the years.
There have been a few who wound up as longer term 'pets' due to the extent of their injuries (one in particular had damaged their spine in a fall from a tree when their bugkilled pinetree home was cut down), but they don't stick around any longer than necessary. Eventually, they wind up being set free for the reasons jtm describes above.
i once had a golden mantle squirrel for a pet.. The dood just couldnt help but nip me when hand feeding him snacks! It was like he was perfectly at home for a few nibbles, then he would sneak in a little nibble off my hand or fingers! Never did get used to that.
Uh, I have some squirrels in my hood who don't think highly of cages...
Credit: Reilly
As for those damn noisy parrots let's talk. A few years ago I had a pair
of Cockatoos hanging out in my pecan tree for like a month! They woulda
been worth $3-4 grand! Maybe more to Crimpie in Colorado. I think the
resident Great Horned Owl got 'em - they were kinds hurtin' in the camo department.
I looked into getting one a few years ago, they are great as babies but they are not a good pet once they become adults. Selling such an animal would be kinda sad, there are plenty of rehab places that need help, go volunteer and take care of the squirrels if you want to play with them. Or raise one as a baby then let it go once the call of the wild sets in. I have a large tree outside my place, with plenty of squirrels in it, it would be a great place to let them run free once they hit puberty.
once the cheque is cashed and the squirrels are shipped...their behavioural issues are not my problem. De-clawing is an option, I guess. No returns, tho.
Ideas for after the "cute baby" thing wears off...
4 squirrels, cut into pieces
1 c. chopped onion
4 cloves garlic
1/2 c. burgundy wine
1 tbsp. chopped parsley
1 tbsp. flour
1 stick butter
1/2 c. chopped green bell pepper
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. chopped onion tops
4 oz. or more mushrooms
Tony's creole seasoning
Cut each squirrel into 8 pieces. Season with creole seasoning. Melt butter in a Dutch oven and fry squirrel pieces until browned all over (and starts to stick to the pot). Add a cup of chopped onions, 1/2 cup of bell peppers and 4 cloves of garlic. When vegetables are soft, add a small amount of cold water and Worcestershire sauce. Cover pot and let simmer one hour. Stir well, add 1/2 cup wine. Cook until tender. Add flour to mushroom liquid, onion tops, parsley and mushrooms. Cook 5 minutes. Combine with squirrels. Serve over rice. Serves 8.
I know two people who had pet squirrels. Yup, they get older and wham, all their cuteness is gone and they wreck havoc. Go rescue a cat or dog, they get better with age and they are the best pets.
I have a pet squirrel that lives under a boulder outisde my condo...My daughter and i named it Sandy after the squirrel on sponge bob...Sandy loves jeffrey cones...Sandy says hello to all the taco members out there..RJ
i once had a golden mantle squirrel for a pet.. The dood just couldnt help but nip me when hand feeding him snacks! It was like he was perfectly at home for a few nibbles, then he would sneak in a little nibble off my hand or fingers! Never did get used to that.
how did you kill it
didnt kill him..He eventually took liking to a she skeewarrel and left to make a home of his own...
They make good "outdoor" pets meaning you can train them to come up and take peanuts from you then run back to their hideouts. You can get them to take peanuts from your hand but it is very difficult. You can also train them to come to your back door and demand handouts by kicking the screen door and chattering. That is about the extent of it. They make great outdoor pets, very poor indoor ones.
Chipmunks are much MUCH easier to corrupt and they make excellent "outdoor pets." They are much less wary of humans. It is very easy to train a chipmunk to run up your pantleg, crawl up your flannel shirt and then go inside your pocket and stuff their face(literally) with unshelled peanuts. They will put one in each cheek and carry one in their mouth, crawl out of your pocket run down your leg and run off. They stash it and come back for more. Chipmunks can be turned into pets within a day or so. Squirrels take much much longer and will never be corrupted to the same extent.
If the purists had their way, you would be arrested and shot at a firing squad for doing this stuff. They will lecture you non-stop about how absolutely awful you are. Somehow, the world continues to turn on its axis, orbit the sun even though you fed the squirrel a peanut. No doubt we will hear from some of them right here, shortly enough. Once I really did commit a capital offense. Instead of giving the chipmunk a peanut, I gave it a french fry. The statute of limitations has run out so I can freely admit to it. Soon thereafter, the animal developed cardiovascular disease and needed triple bypass surgery and it was all my fault. It cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars to treat the animal and correct the damage I caused.
These are the squirrel orders so far. I have your home addresses from Linked In and other similar info-tracking websites (hope you don't mind).
The animals will be shipped this evening...an SASE envelope is included, payment is COD, $28 dollar (US) per unit (this includes a "sampler" box of Squirrel Chow) (also, some of the animals may be pregnant) The animals have been de-loused, but have not been de-clawed.
Can you supply me with black squirrels for my farm. I desperately want to start a colony of them there? Pregnant black squirrels will be just fine but can you assure me that the father is black also? It is a recessive gene so they will breed true.
Can you supply me with black squirrels for my farm. I desperately want to start a colony of them there? Pregnant black squirrels will be just fine but can you assure me that the father is black also? It is a recessive gene so they will breed true.
LEB,
this is Los Angeles, where loose white women often chase after NBA black athletes and whatnot, but in my local trees (where I harvest my squirrels) I have never seen any afro-type squirrels, or sexy inter-racial mating going on. Maybe after I fill a few dozen orders...then with the profits I can import some exotic black squirrels from somewhere.
I was really looking for a better music for the second one. Maybe a little more like the first...
But seriously, take a look at glide ratios of flying animals, physiology, center of mass, etc.
I imagine Mr. Gill, arms perpendicular to his shoulders (forward attack?), with a bed sheet tied to his hands a feet might have given modern jumpers a run for their money. Finally, I would guess that some women could have done much the same, but rings aren't for girls ... (ummm, yeah! boys).
addendum: wing sweep, drag, angle of attack, golf ball divots on the ventral surface to increase laminar flow, well groomed chest hair?
When I was a kid in suburbia, me and my next door neighbor shot a squirrel off his fanatic animal lover mom's birdbath with a BB gun. We wanted to eat it, but not immediately, and the skin was difficult to get off so we put it in a bucket of salt water in the basement and left it. We ended up using pliers to pull the skin off, which wasn't easy, we had to pull really hard for a long time. When his parents were at work we cooked the skinned carcass in his livingroom fireplace with barbecue sauce. The meat was stringy and tough. His mom would have killed us if she ever found out.
Toadgas, couldn't ya burn their testicles out with a wood-burning pen when they are young? That may make them calm and people can enjoy them as pets. Or, you could also sell the wood-burning pens to your customers when the squirrels get a little older.
Toadgas, couldn't ya burn their testicles out with a wood-burning pen when they are young? That may make them calm and people can enjoy them as pets. Or, you could also sell the wood-burning pens to your customers when the squirrels get a little older.
Sound business advice: Come up with an "upsell" item to increase each transaction. Looks like you've got a business partner.
I was working for a tree service in Boulder when construction was in the shitter. while felling and cutting up this big tree, a baby squirrel rolled out. being as I'm Buddhist in my love for all creatures(cept' monkeys)I scooped it up and put it in a towel in a box and was very careful as I continued bucking up the rest of the tree. as I was working I found the 1st squirrels sibling and put it in the box with the other. they were to tiny to bite me, never seen daylight probably. so I took them to the Greenwood Wildlife Rehab where they were raised and released by now I'm sure. they let me hold a tiny redfox while I was there!!
My sharp-eyed electrician noticed the effing little bushy-tailed tree rats
have almost chewed through the neutral on my service! Yeah, as in #00 thick-azz wire!
Hey, look what we have here, a stray squirrel managed to escape toadgas' secret underground squirrel breeding/experimentation basement. What the hell was he doing with them? That poor squirrel.
These white ones are the more noble ones... Still... today I'm approaching a bridge across the Ganges and his big white monkey jumps in front of me and pokes me in the chest.
I'm like WTF! But realize I have a carrot in my mind.
What ever became of that damned thing next door to your parents? It came over to menace me when I dropped by that time. I didn't know what the hell it was. It didn't move like any sort of animal you would expect in rural Texas.
Gah. I hope it tried to bite a power transformer or something.
Hey, look what we have here, a stray squirrel managed to escape toadgas' secret underground squirrel breeding/experimentation basement. What the hell was he doing with them? That poor squirrel.
That Purple Squirrel represents my new product line after much tampering with embryonic squirrel chromosomes. There is a generous REWARD for its return.
(I've also been working with possums, trying to make them less ornery.)
*
Hey, Karl Baba, thanks for checking in from India...that "monkey" looks like a mean mofo. Wise idea, handing over that carrot!
That story is SO funny. The big bad monkey - kind of the ultimate bully and shake down story, no? I like the way he poked you in the chest. (I am sure it was less funny to you considering the size of those teeth). It sounds like he shakes down everyone who wants to cross the bridge.
You never answered my question last week. When you go to India, where do you stay?
That fecker is in Florida somewhere last I heard Tim. It was mean and horrible. I'm glad it didn't attack you too (I wasn't the first). Thank goodness his teeth were ground down (he probably doesn't agree) - see the canines they have? I wouldn't have my calf if it weren't the case.
I still am angry about the attack and everyone's response. True, no skin was broken (hence my parents laughing at it as if it was nothing). No sharp teeth, but he had CRUSHING jaws. He mashed up my leg so good the doctor was concerned about blood clots getting me. It too a long time for my leg to heal.
The mom next door (who loved that spawn of satan so much she didn't care when it attached her own kids) died of pancreatic cancer a year or so after I was attacked. Months later, the dad was killed in a car wreck. So, the family is gone and the monkey was allegedly shipped to FL. Hopefully it's getting better care and nothing or no one else was ever attacked.
Squirrels are pretty cute. I've always liked them. One of my many childhood nicknames was squirrel. I think my dad called me that one on account of my like of climbing trees. My brother didn't care for the tree climbing so much.
Glad that monkey monster is gone. I didn't realize it had bitten you on the calf! Yeah, ha ha. I'd have laughed, too. >:-(
Full on attack. He'd gotten out and I was outside. They are very strong. He chewed up my leg, was clawing at me, bit my fingers - wanted me to pick it up and I wouldn't. Pulled me to the ground. I barely made it back into the house. Very ugly and super scary. Have you seen the stories where they eat off faces, fingers, testicles, etc? It was awful.
I've read all about those people mutilated by chimps. That's what is so horrifying about your attack! To think they at least ground that thing's teeth down is little comfort.
This thing lived right next door, so it may have been territorial. Who knows? When you try to socialize a wild animal, weird sh#t goes down. Its caregiver, the older woman, obviously must have cradled it like a baby. That's why it expected to be picked up.
Monkeys suck as pets. Our friend rescued a pair of Capucins who were due to
be offed by the research lab at a certain prestigious university he was at.
Sometimes he wondered if he had erred in saving them after he was savaged
a few times. All this despite building them a huge and wonderful outdoor
enclosure with access to an inside enclosure during the frigid California
winters. But then gratitude is also a sentiment many a human finds unable to display.
Of course those poor things had good reason to distrust humans.
Exactly. She babied it and allowed it to crawl on her shoulders (even though it was as big as it was). The man, her husband, was abusive toward it. That dynamic was bad - the meaner he was, the more tolerant she was and the more damage the beast did, so the meaner the man became, etc.
So the monkey had gotten out again and come over to my parent's property. He was at their chicken pen (had a thing about pulling the chicken's heads off which was pretty uncool). Anyway, the man next door starts coming over to try to get beast home. Beast sees dad and I think panics. Runs to me to save it (I think in his mind, woman is safe, man is bad). I'm not touching going to pick it up, so it appeared to get very angry at me so it lashed out. It's got me down chomping on me and the man is yelling "kick it as hard as you can!" I couldn't even manage that. I thought I was gonna have my toes chomped off.
You know when people say they are strong? Well, they are beyond your wildest dreams strong. Freakishly strong. And fast.
Now, I hate that beast for sure. But I also felt very sorry for it. It should not be a pet. It should not have had his teeth ground down (ow). It shouldn't have been brutalized by the tyrant dad. Still, following my attack, I was 100% prepared to put a bullet in that beast if I saw it again. Had that attack happened to one of my nieces, I wonder if they would have survived.
BTW, it was featured in an "Animal Cops Houston" episode. It had attacked someone in the city limits. Rather than dealing with it - and that it had repeatedly attacked the three kids in the family - the family moved out to a more rural area as a result.
Due to the viciousness of some of the high profile attacks now, laws are getting passed to keep these things in zoos or out of the country.
The poor animal should never have been brought here.
Good link there, Crimpy. People see monkeys on TV and in Disney movies and think they are suitable pets. They need to wake up and smell the monkey poop.
It's been documented that several of the larger pet monkeys and a few chimps have served as "surrogate husbands" for lonely, middle-aged women.
The chimp that was in the news a few years back (for chewing off a person's face) often took "champagne" bubble baths with his middle-aged female owner.
I don't even want to speculate about what might have taken place in their bedroom.
Boy, that guy was a fool! Here's another moron playing with fire. When it's time I suspect he won't just end up with bitten fingers and an ear.
But Brutus is soooo cuddlewee! The guy's final words are "They live to be 40. It's so nice that I get to live the rest of my life with my best friend." Yeah, you probably will.
look at that monkeys cold dead eyes and then look at the expression on the chicks face. she knows her arm's a goner in a second if coco gets his monkey panties in a wad. damn dirty apes.
sorry for the threaddrift toadgas, a small support group is obviously needed regarding "the monkey thing".
I don't mind sharing my squirrel bandwidth with a splinter group of Monkey-Attack Survivors and Victims of Monkey Phobia
That Grizzly bear "owner" is a total f*#king dumbsh#t, though. He's got Oprah brainwashed. Someday that dope is going to get eaten by that Grizzly bear and then he will be crapped right out of that bear's anus.
Rescues should not be kept as pets, but on a wildlife refuges. Doubt there is enough of such places though.
We have a wildlife sanctuary near Boulder - full of mostly tigers. There are also panthers, lions, camels and other assorted critters that had been pets. There are more live tigers living in the state of Texas than there are in the native lands now! Stupid pet trade.
(All the while acknowledging that I have some Lilac Crowned Parrots. While all of mine, except Henri, were born in my home, I still believe their proper place is the wild. Sadly, their wild environment have been decimated, and the captive bred ones cannot be released. It'd be certain death).
Well, Crimps, in my friend's case those monks were in effect at a rescue
facility. Especially seeing as how David had done post-grad research on the
nasties* and actually made no effort to domesticize them. The only times he
handled them were when they bolted and then it got ugly - welder's gloves
only diminished the carnage!
* In the wilds of Peru. He was not associated with the lab that had used them.
It started as teaching a squirrel to catch. Took a bit but he learned after many beaners. Then he ate from my hand. Then he was caught with blue berry pie all over his now purple face; hence his name blueberry. But after he became familiar with my kitchen cabinets and ate all my food when I was out, I had to administer the tuff (squirt gun) love.
I just strongly believe they shouldn't live in a house and be treated like a pet - dressed up in frilly outfits, roaming freely in a home, put on a leash to take into public, etc.
One of the press clippings on that monkey site was about some disabled person that had a trained helper monkey(!) Of course the guy took it out in public and it bit a kid.
British animal liberation activists break into a laboratory in Cambridge and are caught by a scientist while trying to free some chimpanzees being used for medical research. Despite the warnings of the chief scientist that the chimps are infected with a virus dubbed "Rage", which he claims is highly contagious and only takes one bite to spread, the activists open the cages anyway and release the chimpanzees. A chimp attacks a female activist and immediately infects her, and she in turn infects the other members of the group, including the chief scientist when he attempts to kill her.
Does this ring a bell for anyone?
Seems like there is a high prevalence of the use of chimps being associated with viruses, rage, and zombie movies.
Oh, Crimpie, we are most certainly in agreement. If'n you can't handle 'em
for their own good with welder's gloves then you ain't gonna dress 'em in
no kinda outfit. ;-)
Let us know!