I really liked that pic of the pup Wayne. I think she though she was back in Idaho.
As far as your concerns about the rattlers, it's understood. I do take good care of them as my purpose for keeping them is much more than some kind of "cool" factor. As far as precautions Yep, I take plenty of them. They are housed in a zoo grade enclosure. My friend Frank used to have a business building zoological exhibits. This particular cage is fiberglass housing with Lexan sliding doors with locks. Being Lexan (not plexi) I could whack the dang doors with a hammer, tip the cage upside down and they wouldn't break. I don't "handle" them, even with tongs or a hook if I can avoid it. They are kept on a natural substrate which help keep the cage clean due to normal bio breakdowns, so I don't have to mess around in the cage much. When I do anything in the cage it's with tongs, my hands never go in there with snakes in the cage. They are located in a room that has 2 doors seperating it from the rest of the house and those doors has sweeps on them to prevent escapees. I do everything I can to mitigate the risks of keeping these guys. I was a bit more lacksdasical before Mackenzie was born, but I tightened things up after
Scorpions are interesting. My wife has a fascination with them. In about a month I will start collecting them for sale. I did bulk collecting last year of scorpions and made a few hundred dollars and I only went out and collected 2 nights. I started a bit late in the year though, so I hope to do better this year.
The cactus do freeze someitmes, we had some record lows this year and a lot of people sustained substantial damage to their cactus gardens. We had single digit lows...which for most of the country is nothing but for here it was bad...Lot of pipes freezing and breaking. This is only my 3rd winter in AZ but I've been told it only snows about once every 4 years in Tucson
I love it here, I do have lots of room, I'm only on an acre but I have a ton of public land adjacent to the property.
