Exotic pets find shelter

Published Mon, Aug 29, 2005
By SANDRA WALSH
The Beaufort Gazette

Chris and Genny Bruff's home on Possum Hill Road is a step away from a petting zoo.

The young couple owns five dogs, five ferrets and five sugar gliders. They're also foster parents to four kittens and a dog, under the Beaufort Humane Association's pet fostering program, and are seeking homes for a few rescued pals: Six ferrets, two guinea pigs, three rabbits and three flying squirrels.

That brings their total to 34 pets and a 1-year-old daughter, Lake-Lynn, who's been nicknamed "Hooty" because she looked like an owl in her ultrasounds.

"There's no place for exotics in Beaufort," Chris Bruff said last week while holding Cherry Berry, a rescued ferret with diabetes who has incurred more than $500 in vet bills. "If the (Beaufort County Animal Shelter) gets them, they have to put them down."

When the Bruffs bought their first home in January, they decided to start Hooty's Haven, an exotic animal rescue.

The couple doesn't have any formal training dealing with animals, but Genny, a Tennessee native, and Chris, raised in Oklahoma, have been animal lovers since they were children.

They spend their free time doing research on the Internet and looking for prospective toys in magazines such as FerretDepot.com.

"I've always been around animals," Genny said. "So has Chris; we just love them."

Many of the animals the Bruffs have taken in come from friends or friends of friends who decided owning a pet was more than they bargained for.

"People don't research what (sugar gliders) eat; they don't realize they need fresh fruit every night," Chris said while holding Bandit, a sugar glider who was left untouched in a small cage in Atlanta for nearly two years before landing a home at the Bruffs. "They like to be held."

He said the finicky marsupials can actually die without a companion sugar glider in the cage with them.

The Bruffs also seek out potentially mistreated animals -- particularly ferrets -- from classified sections of newspapers.

The couple tries to take in mistreated animals so they can nurse them back to health, then post pictures of them on their Web site, www.HootysHaven.com.

They sell the animals on the Web site -- except the sugar gliders, which require a license to sell -- for a modest price to families that are reliable and knowledgeable about the care an exotic pet requires.

"We can tell if someone is serious or not about taking care of them," Genny said.

Exotic animals are species that have been imported from foreign countries. They include the sugar glider, also known as an Australian possum.

"South Carolina doesn't have an outlined exotic pet policy as far as what types of exotics you can have," Chris said. "I don't know about big cats or larger animals, but I don't deal with those -- yet."

The Bruffs also have an affinity for wild animals.

An empty red cage sits in their living room where Brutus, a 10-week-old raccoon, resided until last week.

The Bruffs took the raccoon in when a friend found him injured on the side of the road.

The Bruffs cared for Brutus for about three weeks. When he recovered from injuries, they took him to a quaint spot near where he was found on Sams Point Road on Lady's Island.

"He was ready," Chris said. "He stayed around us for about 30 minutes, then settled in the middle of a cement hole near the beach, eating all the crabs he could find."

At the Bruffs' home, Brutus was on a diet of chicken, peaches and raw eggs.

"Some people, I've noticed over the years, they'll get a baby raccoon and bottle-feed it, then want to let it go," said Matt Kraycar, one of two managers for Hilton Head Island-based Critters Management. "When you let that animal go, it has no idea how to act in the wild; that's a big problem you run into there."

The company has been around for a decade and specializes in extracting problematic animals from commercial and residential property. Most of its jobs involve extracting rats and raccoons from people's homes.

The company uses an old-fashioned trap for rat jobs, but armadillos, possums and raccoons are relocated, he said.

Alligators are also a problem in the state, which is home to more than 100,000. Kraycar said the state Department of Natural Resources requires the alligators to be put down.

"There's that possibility it could have something wrong with it, a disease or something," he said. "And with alligators -- I think the population is a little higher than they want them to be around here."

The only thing the company doesn't handle is insects.

"We even deal with a lot of injured birds around here; take them to vets," he said. "Just last week, I had a red-tailed hawk fly into a lady's house, and I was in there getting that out."

The company doesn't typically deal with domestic animals, but if it encounters cats or dogs, they are taken to a shelter to be spayed or neutered, then taken back to where they were initially found, Kraycar said.

"Overall, if possible, it's better to just let them go out on their own and let nature run its course," he said.

Kraycar said there is a great need in the area for his company, but he has seen similar businesses come and go through the years.

"They'll usually be around a couple of years, then disappear," Kraycar said.

But the Bruffs said they are in it long term.

The couple recently applied for nonprofit status to alleviate some of the financial burden associated with the small operation.

"It helps to be a nonprofit; you get more donations and help," said Chris, who works as tech support for a local Internet service company.

The Bruffs estimate they spend at least $500 a month on food alone for their animals. There are also costs involved with vaccinations and general care.

"We spend half of our paychecks on them," said Genny, a sergeant with Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island.

But as the Bruffs check on one of their pregnant sugar gliders and a pinkie-sized baby emerges from the mother's pouch, it becomes evident how much the Bruffs enjoy what they're doing.

"Look at that; look at that," Chris said excitedly while taking frame after frame of digital pictures for the Web site. "Genny, look."

"Wow," Genny said, looking at a baby sugar glider for the fist time in her life. "That's amazing."