FerretMonarch wrote:The only rules are nothing weird/creepy or could potentially eat her cats/puppy. So no snakes, skunks, wild animals, rats (which arent exactly low maintenance anyways), and no birds.
What is defined as "creepy"? Snakes and rats? And are these animals she finds creepy, or you? What animals would you not want? Because this will affect people's recommendations (ex. someone mentioned mice and gerbils, but why would these be fine and rats "creepy")?
Also, I think people are taking the "don't want to clean fish tank" as "don't want to clean." But... water changes are so annoying, more annoying than cleaning up after other pets. It's just such such a hassle, and if you do it wrong and upset the nitrogen cycle... well, bad things occur. There aren't really any other pets that straight up die if you clean their tank wrong. You don't become a fishkeeper, you become a chemist. I mean seriously you need a kit with pH strips and different chemicals to test the water, which you do with every water change. There is no other pet where cleaning is such a delicate affair. So I totally agree with you about not wanting to deal with a fish tank, and I disagree that this implies you wouldn't be able to take care of a caged animal.
FerretMonarch wrote:I aint gonna answer all your questions cause there's a lot; i do think right now just due to space and cause i'd rather not have to move a big ol glass tank when i do i think a sea monkey would probably be the most logical option (and also i dont think a shrimp would really care if i had to move it in about 4 years).
You have a lot of really useful and fleshed out questions and I absolutely appreciate it since some of them I didnt think about
These are great questions and it would be very helpful for us to make better recommendations, and many of them are one word responses or yes/no questions. Ofc you don't need to answer them right now or all at once, but it would really help us pick the best pet for you ^^
Anyway, I'm going to recommend arthropods/bugs. They are the easiest to take care of by far, and there are so many to choose from. They all have different requirements but there's something for everyone.
* = look don't touch (venomous)
Eats live insects: tarantulas* (their poop looks like bird poop and is annoying to clean if it gets on the glass/acrylic/plastic of their tank btw; look for lists of beginner-friendly ones, ex. many in the Aphonopelma and Brachypelma genera), scorpions* (small U.S. natives like Uroctonus mordax or exotics like the dune scorpion, or big black ones like emperor, dictator, Asian forest), tailless whip scorpions (ex. Damon genus, Phrynus genus), giant vinegaroon, jumping spiders (ex. Phidippus genus), mantises (ex. Chinese mantis, Carolina mantis, giant Asian mantis), centipedes* (the only thing on this list I'M scared of and wouldn't keep lol)
Does not eat insects: isopods (sooo many to choose from), U.S. native rhino and stag beetles (sadly we don't have access to the huge ones popular in Japan), U.S. native darkling beetles (including blue death-feigning beetles!), walking sticks and leaf insects, millipedes (ex. bumblebee, scarlet, Florida ivory, Narceus genus, Orthoporus genus, Tylobolus genus), cockroaches (ex. Madagascar hissing, green banana, Death's head, etc. So many to choose from. This entire order of animals is demonized because of a few pest species! So unfair).