大象传媒

Five people with seriously unusual pets

Media caption,

Meet the Taiwanese woman who lives with four pigs

On 5 February, the Lunar New Year will begin and it will become the year of the pig.

But for one woman in Taiwan, it is the year of the pig every single year. That's because Jenny Tsai lives with four of them!

(You can find out your Chinese zodiac animal here by the way.)

"The happy thing for me is that they are very affectionate. When I am sick they stay by my side and keep me company," she explains.

"Because pigs are very intelligent animals and when they see where you keep the food they will take it from there. So we have to lock the refrigerator in our house!"

It sounds quite hard work! But she's not the only person who's ever had some unusual roommates...

Philippe Gillet has a total of 400 unusual pets at his home, including snakes, tarantulas, a tortoise and TWO pet alligators.

Media caption,

Meet the man with two pet alligators

He says that his reason for having so many exotic animals is because he wants to help protect nature and teach more people about reptiles.

There are many other people who like to keep snakes as pets.

But we don't imagine there are many who have a snake quite like this one...

Media caption,

Meet this family's unusual pet - a two-headed snake

The family was given the Western Rat snake by a friend who found it in his backyard, and they decided they would keep it.

Sometimes, though, a pet that looks rather normal can turn out to be very different from the rest.

For example, we wonder what owner Tomohiro Ito in Tokyo, Japan thought when his cat came out with this noise...

Media caption,

Meet the cat who makes some seriously unusual noises

Apparently he makes this sound "when he's cranky".

Next up is 13-year-old Matt from Adelaide in Australia who asked for a dog for Christmas - and got an alpaca instead.

Image source, Chewpaca
Image source, Chewpaca

He even takes his pal skateboarding with him near his house!

Matt named his alpaca 'Chewy' because he likes to chew things.

Do you have any unusual pets at home? Let us know in the comments below.