Snails

When my kids look outside there are a lot of animals they think they want as pets. Squirrels, birds, foxes, bears, snakes, lizards, there's no end to what they think is a good idea to keep in the house. Growing up we had raccoons and crows and hatched turtles and snakes, and recently we had Baby Deer live with us for a while, but I still think that trying to keep wild creatures as pets is a bad idea. I have one exception to that though, snails. Wild snails make great short term pets. In the right season, they're easy to find, they're easy to care for, they're interesting, and they're durable. In the spring you can check under boards that your kids leave laying in the yard or under rocks or any other place that snails might hide during the day. Every now and then you find them in the morning stuck to the side of the house or a car tire if they haven't made it back into hiding before sunrise. Be gentle when you pick them up, you don't want to hurt their foot making them let go of whatever it is they're hanging onto. Snails have to be the easiest wild animal to catch.
Once you've caught your snail, pretty much any container with a lid will work to keep them. We use old peanut butter jars that have been washed well. Put a little dirt in the bottom, a few sticks, and a leaf or two to crawl around on. Add just a bit of water to make it moist and your habitat is done. Feeding is as simple as putting a small piece of cabbage leaf inside the habitat. The leaf stays good for anywhere from 4 days to a week. When it looks bad, change it. A $2 head of cabbage could feed an army of snails for a year. You'd better find a way to eat the rest of it.
That's really all there is to it. The snails crawl around and eat the cabbage and explore the jar and it's really cool to watch. I like to keep the jar in the middle of the kitchen table as a living centerpiece. It's fun to sit down to dinner and watch the snails crawl along. Like all pets, your kids will get sick of the snails. When you have a dog, this sort of thing is a problem. You're sort of stuck with the dog until it gets old and dies or your kids move out and you can pass it on with them. With a snail, you just go out the the back yard and let it go where you found it. It has spent anywhere from a few days to a few months living in the lap of luxury eating as much cabbage as it could stuff down it's little snail throat. Now it can head off back into the wild and tell it's snail friends about the awesome time it had. You're happy, the kids are happy, the snail is happy, and when you want another one, just head out back and flip over a board. Snails rule.