A tortoise is not an all year 'outdoor' pet. Most vicious pet I ever owned was a rabbit! From the local rescue - we were all terrified of it lol!

If housed properly Tortoise can live outside all year round and hibernate naturally.

Tortoises today can cost anything £200 onwards and making an enclosure tortoise friendly isn't cheap either bit of leap from a bunny to be honest (no pun intended)

Japenese Quail are great little birds but be warned the males do crow something awfull! Its also often continous and can be irratating to neighbours my advice would be to go with females only all the males are quite handsome. Sexing is easy too as males tend to be bigger and have darker bibs if I remember correctly females are much more fawny in colour.

If handled gentley from day one you will have nice easy to handle birds that will produce a lot of eggs for you. Japenese Quail are the ones you buy in supermarkets and taste really great in supermarkets. You could build an extended run around the hutch as they like to scratch around you definately could not free range them as they would be very easy prey for cats.

Mine wasn't that expensive (and I believe it's more specialist breeds that cost more) And you can get rescues and re homes

I stand by my recommendation, Torts make excellent pets

Thanks for everyone's replies, I think we are going to go for a pair of ferrets, OH is drawn to them much more and so am I to be honest, will do some research and probably look at getting two hobs. Tried looking at rescue places near me in Sussex but don't seem to be having much joy!

I've always wanted a tortoise but it worries me that they are a bit too 'specialist'.

Ferrets are great. When I had 2 my jill could get a bit nippy when excited but the hob was so laid back.

Good luck with your ferrets! Lots of pics when you get them

There's a rescue in Kent who's happy to home out of the area, it's who I fostered for. Don't think she has a website but find Shadowz on http://www.ferretsforum.co.uk (good forum to join and do your homework on too)

I owned one for over 35 yrs. Sadly she was not allowed to come to Cyprus with me. She lives now with a lady who worked with me at the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and who was charged with taking her to the Cornish Tortoise Sanctuary. She fell in love with her and kept her! She does have special housing for this 90 yr old reptile but keeps her 'awake' all year round (not ALL tortoises hibernate anyway). There is a lot of misconception about keeping tortoises in the UK.

Letting them hibernate in gardens, you run the risk of them being gnawed at by rats and all sorts of problems if the ground freezes. It is also a mistake to think they hibernate 'all winter'. In the wild hibernation is only for 6 weeks or so.

I won't go into too much detail but in general, they will not live to such a healthy old age if kept outside. The info and advice is all out there on the specialist chelonia websites. Some simple 'hibernation' do's and don'ts can be found here:

http://www.tortoisesoutheast.co.uk/i...ibernation&a=0

I wouldn't advise anyone to get a tortoise as a pet before they've genned up on the different species and learned about proper care for them.