My daughter and I are part of our local 4H chapter's small animal club, and every year we help with the 4H-sponsored county fair in the small animal pavilion where all manner of critters are on display. I'm designing nine (so far) posters to be hung around the pavilion with each poster representing a single animal. The list includes ferret, rabbit, guinea pig, mouse, gerbil, hamster, rat, lizard, and snake.

The posters will give a quick introduction to each animal, a sort of high-level summary that can be read very quickly, and below that will be a little "feature grid". There will be a literature holder attached to the poster that will contain more detailed information about the animal in question. The idea is that people will see the poster, get the summary information, interact with the animal that's actually present in the pavilion, and if they're interested in getting one for themselves they can grab a flyer that has the more detailed information. The point of the poster is to be eye-catching and contain simple and easy to digest information that a person walking by can absorb quickly; the point of the flyer is to expand on the poster's information so that a curious person can spend a bit more time reading and thereby have a more fleshed-out picture of that particular animal's requirements.

The "feature grid" is the reason for this post. The left column will have a category and the right column will have a rating (think: 1-5 stars). I want the grid to have between 6-8 lines and be as intuitive and accurate as possible. Each poster will have ONLY the rating for that specific animal (i.e., the ferret poster won't show the ratings for the other animals) but the following grid puts them together for comparative purposes. And that's part of this: I want it to be comparative. I want people to associate the ratings of one animal against the ratings of another animal on a like-for-like basis. So far the compounded grid looks like this:

| Ferret | Rabbit | Guinea Pig | Mouse | Gerbil | Hamster | Rat | Lizard | Snake ---|---|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|---- Cost of Animal | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 Space Requirement | 4 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 Cuddle Factor | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 Trainability | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 Vet Costs | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 5 Lifespan | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4

The categories are defined as follows:

• Cost of Animal: Obvious. How much does the animal cost if you were to buy from a pet store.
• Space Requirement: How much space the animal needs to live a happy and healthy life.
• Cuddle Factor: How actively friendly and encouraging the animal is towards human interaction.
• Trainability: How much the animal can be trained to follow commands.
• Vet Costs: The expected cost of veterinary visits over the course of the animal's natural life.
• Lifespan: How long the animal lives, on average.

If you assume my initial values are accurate then you could look at that grid and safely assume that a rabbit or snake is more expensive than a guinea pig or hamster; that a rat is more cuddly than a rabbit or mouse; that a rabbit needs far more space than a mouse; etc. It also makes it easy to see that a ferret is overall more high-maintenance than a gerbil, while a ferret and a rabbit are overall about the same effort.

So what I'm looking for from the reddit community is (a) some feedback on the values I'm starting with, (b) suggestions for adding/removing/changing the categories, and (c) values for those aforementioned changes.

Input appreciated. Thanks.

This is my herd, I also have two more Texels guinea pigs on their way being transported here 🫶🫶

Hello! I’m with the Medina County SPCA in Ohio. A few weeks ago, and I believe someone shared the news story in this group, our shelter took in over 200 rats from a hoarding situation. They’ve been through a lot, but these guy are fighters!! We have been doing appointments for adoptions as they’ve become available but starting next week we’re opening up to walk-ins (during adoption hours). We have males and females of all different ages from pinkies to seniors. These rats can only be adopted as PETS. So if you have room in your heart and in your home, please consider adopting these guys. It would make such a difference in their lives to live and retire in safe, loving conditions which they did not know before.

We have a condition for adoption that if you only adopt one, you must have proof of owning other rats at home, or you can adopt a couple at a time.

The rats were all intermixed in their previous home so naturally we’ve had a lot of pregnancies. Because we cannot say for sure if female rats that are adopted are or aren’t pregnant, we’ve made a contract that states that if you can foster until the babies are able to be weaned we will take them back at 5 weeks and adopt them out. You have the right to keep the babies of course but to try and reduce overpopulation and unwanted pregnancies, this was the best we could come up with.

Please consider these sweet squeaks!!

I've had this cage that sits on top of a tank for years but never kept anything in it. I was wondering if it is appropriate for any kind of little critter or if I should just get rid of it. I'm moving to a new place soon and was thinking about getting a pet but I want to make sure they're safe and happy. Any feedback is appreciated!

(Also ignore my carpet; I vacuumed right after I took this picture)