Keeping Meerkats As Pets: Pros and Cons

#meerkat #pets #animals
Meerkats are cute animals of the mongoose family. Their usual habitat is South Africa, the Kalahari Desert, but people from all over the globe breed them as an exotic pets. However, it is worth understanding that keeping unusual animals always involves some difficulties.

What kind of animals are meerkats?

As already mentioned, meerkats are rodents that belong to the mongoose family. Their body length is 30 cm, but they also have a tail of comparable length (about 20 cm); they usually weigh about 700-750 grams; a noticeable visual feature is the black stripes over the orange-brown fur; animals live in captivity up to 13 years. In the wild, they are true predators, starting to hunt at one month of age and living in families of 20 to 60 individuals. Their diet corresponds to their habitat: mostly all sorts of insects, but meerkats can also eat scorpions, snakes, lizards, in case of extreme need, bird eggs, and plant food.

Life in captivity, however, is not a big trouble for meerkats: they live a few years longer in captivity than in the wild. The meerkat, which has lived with humans since childhood, partially adapts to the conditions around it and is easy to tame. Because of this, the popularity of the meerkat as a pet is constantly growing. However, its potential owners should be clearly aware of the features, pros, and cons of living with them.
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