Whether you’ve just finished browsing our website, or whether you’ve had the chance to meet some of our animals in person, we’re sure you’ve been won over by them already! But here at Oreo and Friends, we’d now like to ask just one thing of you – please don’t rush out to buy a meerkat, raccoon or skunk for yourself!
Yes, all of our animals are wonderful. Yes, it is possible to keep exotic animals. But we promise you – these animals should in no way be viewed as household pets! The last thing we want to do is to glamorise exotic animal keeping, and we absolutely do not advise that you attempt to buy them for yourself.
Many people seem to believe that because these animals are cute and adorable, they’ll automatically make a great addition to your household. And particularly, it seems, since the release of the popular ‘compare the market’ advert featuring Alexander the meerkat, there have reportedly been countless cases of people flocking to acquire a meerkat of their very own. Unfortunately, many of these people don’t stop to consider the detailed and delicate needs of such an exotic creature, and so these poor animals end up immediately sold, dumped, or forced to spend the remainder of their lives in terrible conditions, cooped up all alone in dog crates or rabbit hutches. Trust us, we know – we’ve seen it first hand through some of the rescue cases we’ve taken on.
The keeping of any of these animals requires an incredible amount of money, time, research, planning, and above all, dedication. The dietary, environmental and social needs of these creatures are infinitely complex.
Are you willing to spend a great deal of your hard earned money to make sure the animal’s diet is meticulously correct? Are you willing to make room for a living space that replicates the environmental conditions of their native country – even considering that sometimes zoo enclosures aren’t up to scratch? Are you willing to buy more than one of these animals, and extend the living space accordingly, in order to reproduce the social situation they would have in the wild? Not many people can profess to be dedicated enough to devote their lives to an animal in this way. That’s what these animals have to be – a way of life.
We beg you – please, please, please think twice before considering keeping an exotic animal. We simply cannot stress how difficult these animals are to care for, and we’d hate to see any more of them kept incorrectly just because some people view them as the latest trend.
Please remember: these animals are not fashion accessories, they’re a lifetime commitment, and they are most definitely not for the faint-hearted.
