Sounds like you could have started a petting zoo. She had/has a love for animals, that's a good thing.
When I was in later elementary school, when my brother came home on leave he'd ask "So, how is your zoo?" I had two cats, a beagle, a canary, 3 hamsters, 64 rabbits (and did not live on a farm, I started with 3 and they reproduced), non-tropical fish (goldfish and whatever the black ones were called), and numerous mice (a teacher said anyone who brought "a note from home" could have one of the pet mice her daughter had outgrown, I wasn't told the mouse was "expecting" and it gave birth to a litter of little mousies overnight). But of all pets, I've always preferred cats.
I can relate to the rabbits. When I was 15 I lived in Brooklyn I had a female white New Zealand and my neighbor had a Dutch after a year of breeding we ran out of pen space even with giving away some to whoever wanted one. My daughter used to breed lion heads. My favorite is the dwarf it stays a bunny forever.
We had a ring-tailed Lemur for awhile...very unique markings! They are primates and are native to the island of Madagascar. Hal
There's a guy on Craigslist selling chinchillas as pets. I have never seen one, either in a pet shop or in someone's home. Chinchilla have the densest fur of any land mammal (only the sea otter has denser fur.) They are popular as pets, and require lots of exercise and routine dental care, as their teeth grow throughout their entire lives. TOV means Touch of Velvet. This one goes for $250. Apparently blue diamonds are very rare and highly desirable, as they are "double recessives" (violet and sapphire coloring.) This one goes for $650. I'd be afraid to let it play.
WOW they really went up in price, there's a pet shop couple of miles away that gets them in every once in awhile. A preserve out east had some tame ones, that my grandkids got to pet.
They claim to be able to trace the blue diamond color to a breeder in Germany and to a breeder in Oregon. There may be other--more mundane-colors out there are reasonable pet prices. A quick web search finds brown ones for sale @ $100, and a listing for PETCO that says to search "your local store." The one near me does not have any chinchillas for sale. I bet your grandkids said "soft." Chinchillas have 12 hairs per follicle.
Yes one of there comments was "how soft" then "I want one". Just a note not all "hand raised pets" are the same, I've had some like my prairie dog that nipped every time you picked it up.
I am a guinea pig person. You can pet them and love them or leave them be as long as they are fed and kept clean. I loved my equines, dogs, chickens, but I have had lots more types of pets. I even had a cow that was special. I wish everyone would learn that all animals have feelings and treat them accordingly. I am not a peta nut. But if all kids learned that, maybe we could treat each other better.
Sadly, I think people learn to treat defenseless critters from how they were treated as a defenseless critter. btw: I thought of you when I saw this...not the behaviour but the humor:
I Love that pic! It could have been me but my saddle pad is red. Do you know what cutting is with regard to cattle? Cowboys pick an animal that needed to be separated from the herd and 'cut' it out. My cow actually reversed the roles. She would try to keep me from going to open the barn door or whatever I was trying to do. She would get in front of me and weave back and forth, side pass... whatever she needed to do to stop me and back me up. Surprisingly, she was bigger than I was even though she was a Dexter. (pound for pound) Anyway, her whole point was that she needed me to scratch an itch. She would position herself any way she needed to show me where. I was surprised she would not roll over on her back to get me to scratch her belly. Eventually she would not move in the morning till I brushed her all over. She was naughty but loved to hang out. I wonder if that was why a lot of old days cows were called Bossy.
You win! I used to think I was the world champion trivia knowledge person. But you win with 12 hairs per follicle. As a matter of fact, just now I had difficulty remembering the word trivia.
I'm glad you like the pic. It cracked me up. Hearing stories like yours reminds me as to why so many people are fans of cows, and who have cow chachkies all over the place. To the uninitiated, they just stand in fields like horses, but not cutting quite as fine a figure. Yeh, well I gotta be careful about being an Internet Instant Expert. Websites say "12 hairs per follicle," but the only wisdom that comes with age for me is realizing how little I know, and how little I trust what little I think I know.