By Charlie Vannatter
It was an early morning as the yellow school bus arrived at freshman Lilly Hines’ home. The kids were sitting on the bus as usual when out of nowhere, they saw something that they never expected.
Most kids beg their parents for a dog or a cat, but for some families, the pet may hop, slither or squawk.
There are many students at Delta High School with unusual pets. Hines has a pet somewhere from the land down under.
Hines has an assortment of animals: chickens, peacocks, turkeys, cows, pigs, and a few snakes. But the animal that seems to stand out the most is a kangaroo.
Hines has an 8-month-old red kangaroo named Steve. Her family bought Steve at an auction.
One of the students that rides Hines’ bus is sophomore Shaelyn Davis.
“I wasn’t sure if I saw a kangaroo at first, but I was, like, pretty sure that I saw it. And so I looked out and I just saw something like hopping around,” Davis said. “I was like, maybe it’s a cat. I don’t think it’s a kangaroo. But then it was actually a kangaroo at the end because I was like, what the heck?”
Having an exotic pet isn’t just about having something unique to talk about.
With responsibility, Hines had to figure out how often Steve needs to be fed, and how to properly care for an animal that most people only see at a zoo. She says that she special orders the Kangaroo Kibble through Rural King.
The kibble that she orders is about $60 and she goes through it about every two months.
Another student at Delta High School with a unique pet is sophomore Mac Durham.
He recently got a ball python.
“I’d always liked reptiles since I was younger,” Durham said. “I would always ask my mom to go to the zoo and stuff, and I would catch little garter snakes out by a cornfield.”
Some different struggles, according to Durham, are maintaining the snake’s environmental needs like worrying about humidity, staying on schedule feeding, and making sure the snake doesn’t get diseases.
Instead of getting a pet through an ordinary pet store Durham ordered his snake online from a website called XYZ Reptiles
Sophomore Breighlyn Ellis owns a bearded dragon that he got from his grandma who couldn’t care for it anymore
“I’ve always thought they were really cool,” Ellis said. “Because I’ve always had dogs and cats, and I mean, they’re alright, but I just thought something more exotic would be cooler.”
Senior Kayla Rufenbarger has about 35 snakes and 11 lizards. A lot of the animals that she has are rescues.
“I try to give them a good home, and if they actually heal from what they have done, then I give them to another good home,” Rufenbarger said.
Rufenbarger also said that having pets that are more exotic comes with a lot more work because you have to match their environmental needs.
Rufenbarger’s craziest pet story is that her reticulated python named Lemon Drop almost ate itself.
“We gave her her food. She took it, no problem, and she went and she bit herself trying to eat it three times before she eventually tried to actually eat the prey item,” Rufenbarger said.
Rufenbarger has always been into reptiles. As a kid she loved dinosaurs and that evolved into crocodilians, then she found lizards and snakes, and that’s where she’s at right now.
Rufenbarger also does showcases where basically a lot of vendors come together to try to show and promote their animals to sell.
However Rufenbarger does something a little different, she brings her animals there and she has a family that can come up for free, take pictures, hold the animals, and get to experience what they really are like, Because according to Ruffenbarger they are so misunderstood.
