An eleven-year boy had a Marmoset in his bedroom for a year. The parents got it for him as a “pet” age ten put it in a metal rabbit cage and left it to the boy to care for him. The parents, not unusually, had done no research on this animal in the wild or how to care for it in captivity.
Beside the cage was a music system with a speaker right by the animal’s cage. When asked, the parents did not know what their son fed the animal. He told me biscuits, sweets, bread and cereal. Once he gave it chewing gum which coated the face and he could not get it off for weeks, he laughed.
The parents remembered there was a monkey in the house when it badly bit the son during a party with his school friends. I dread to think what that little monkey was forced to endure at the mercy of a ten-year-old boy. And all with the legal permission of the UK.
The Marmoset was slightly dehydrated on collection, underweight for age and gender, bad teeth and poor coat quality and the life had gone out of his eyes. We were surprised, but very pleased, it was not worse, saved by the fact the cage by chance was by a large window that the boy often kept open so it had some direct exposure to sunlight.
The Marmoset is now happily within a family group of Marmosets and thoroughly enjoys insects for breakfast!
