Saff

Your Questions:

Is it best to keep them inside when they are young (to get them to bond)
or move them straight outside?

It will all depend upon where you plan to keep them eventually? If you are going to keep them outside, are you going to still maintain the interaction with them? For to gain their bond, then you must continue to interact with them. Are they going to be breeding for you? Or are you looking at a same sex pair?


Whats the best bedding?

Again it will reflect where you are going to be keeping them, a bedding for outside will be different to the bedding if kept indoors.


What are good toys?

Toys? Well if you mean furnishing them with environmental stimulation, then again are they going to be outside or indoors? Toys might not be the right word for it.


Do they need heating?

Heating, well again whether they are outside or inside will provide the answer. Outside if the nesting is ample then no, imho they will not need heating,especially if aclimatised, if they are inside they could well be under the houses' comfortable heating - ie central heating. In a basic answer omo no, heating is not an absolute but it comes down to each individual keeper.


Do males smell if not nutered?

Not particularly, male meerkats do not smell that much to begin with in my opinion.


What do they like to eat other than bugs and fruit?

http://www.meerkats.net/info.htm

The diet will vary from keeper to keeper and from meerkat to meerkat

The meerkats we keep are used to a full diet range from fruit and vegetables to pasta. But they also enjoy yoghurt, cottage cheese, eggs boiled/scrambled] pasta, fruit, veg, mealworms, crickets and locusts. We basically try to give them a broad spectrum diet, the other night they had sardine, which they relished.


Meerkats l have kept in the past never ate chicks, or rats, but stuck purely to a diet consisting of fruit/veg/invertebrates.

Other meerkats l know survived in collections solely on a little fruit/veg with the main bulk of their diet being chicks, rats and mice.


http://www.meerkats.net/info.htm#Meerkat%20cuisine
Most of the Meerkats food is found underground and their specially adapted bodies are perfect for this. Their front claws are curved and act as shovels. They often have to dig their own body weight in dirt just to get a small insect. Foraging for a Meerkat means digging here and there and occasionally finding a tasty morsel on the surface then moving forward with the gang on the endless search for food. A typical Meerkats diet consists of worms, crickets, grasshoppers, small rodents, lizards, small snakes, birds, eggs, fruit, and ant larvae (which they especially love). Insects are a particularly good source of nutrition for the Meerkats because they reproduce rapidly and supply an almost constant food source. I have even had the rare chance to see a Meerkat find a Kalahari truffle which is rare and very expensive in stores. He seemed to enjoy it immensely. Meerkats also love to eat poisonous scorpions which are plentiful. They do this by quickly biting off their stingers and then consuming the rest. Meerkats appear to be resistant to many deadly venom's which greatly increases the variety of their diet. A Meerkat will often drag any poisonous prey such as a scorpion or millipede across the sand before eating it. They do this to remove the chemical defenses of their soon to be meal. They will make use of a water source if one is nearby but Meerkats have developed the ability to get all their liquid requirements from their diet. In the summer, the Meerkats must work harder to get their food because the insects have burrowed deeper in the sand in order to be closer to moisture. The rain brings the insects back to the surface, which means feast to the Meerkat.

Hope this helps

R

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SAff - I apologise in advance as I know this post will sound rather harsh

You are NOT ready to own meerkats - simple answer really. You know nothing of thier basic needs despite stating you have "researched them" and "read care sheets". the things you want to know are outlines as basic care in nearly every meerkat care sheet available.

You are being told by experienced exotics handlers and animal keepers that you are not ready yet you genuinely beleive you could give "ONE" meerkat a good home!

Sorry but I don't beleive that is the case. You know nothing of the social infrastructure they require, of their needs for indoor or outdoor housing, thier heat, food, mental stimulation - basically everything you have asked about has been things you should know on a basic level without having to ask BEFORE you get a group.

I really, really hope you seriously reconsider your choice of animal. Yes, it is "cool" and really good fun working with animals such as meerkats and skunks and the like but it is in no way something ot be taken lightly just because your mum has caved in and said you can have 1 of any species.

Again, I apologise if that offends you but the nicely nicely approach other people have taken doesn't appear to have worked

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Saff,

Brittone05 and Emmaj may appear to be harsh, but they are no different to Zak or in reality myself, you are not right for these animals.

You want the information handed to you on a silver platter, and that is not what the ownership of any species is about - you must research your chosen species.

If you are after 'really hard answers' then fine, come to the aid of a forum, but the information you seek - is out there already in plentiful supply from zoos, game parks, reference libraries and private keepers in the way of websites, guides and articles.

You are not ready to own them. And it should not be about the ownership of one animal, it should be about allowing that animal interaction from their own kind, you as a human, are just a side dish in terms of companionship, you can never make for the main course of likewise friendship.

But you are failing to recognise this at any level, you are insistant upon being told what you need to do. Exotic keepers do not need to be specifically directed by others, they direct themselves with their passions and enthusiasm for species, they can learn from others, but to begin with they teach themselves and then gain and learn from experience.

R

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I had a pair of meerkats for 7 years. Both hand reared (BY ME). In that 7 years me and my partner had 1 evening away togeather!!!! They will be with you 24/7. No good trying to find a sitter, anyone not part of their mob will be bitten. They are super intelligent, need enclosoures not cages and lots of stimulation!!! They will dig at everything and anything. I am not saying dont keep them but they are one of the MOST demanding and most intelligent creatures i have owned. Give it some thought! Want to know more then pm me :o)

got to chuckle a little..

after all this, and after all the questions.. and anwsers being handed to Saff on a plate..

the day AFTER this was all posted.. what do we get??

Meerkats! - Livefood UK Forum

i mean FFS Saff... did you not read ANY of what people here have spent their time and effort writing out and sending you?

are you not capable of ANY of your own research or did you want it just handed out on a plate????

N

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it could be worse he could just go to the shop and buy them, at leasts hes asking questions which is more than some people would

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yeah, trouble is Si that despite being given the answers time and time again, he is NOT listening to them!

whats the point of asking, if you cannot be arsed to learn?

N

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sadly that does seem to be a reacurring problem on this site.

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*chuckles*

now that did make me smile Si!

and my GOD what an understatement!

somedays i read the boards and think..



N

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Perhaps they are canvassing for different opinions (just hasn't occured to them that 2 major uk forums may have a few overlapping members lol), I often cross post any questions I ask here onto another american forum I lurk on. I've found quite often that some of the advice I get from across the pond differs from what gets said over here.

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