After opening in Arizona over 20 years ago, an exotic pet shop, Custom Creatures, opened in Rexburg.
Custom Creatures is owned and operated by Jordan and Maureen Moores a couple who is originally from the Rexburg area.
In an interview with BYU-Idaho Radio, Jordan Moores said he was originally a financial advisor, but he has always loved animals and caring for them began as a side gig.
“I’ve always been into animals,” Moores said. “I always tell people that animals are gifts from God to us – they take care of us, and we take care of them. They all kind of fascinated me so we continued getting into them, and one became many, and we finally decided to open some kind of pet shop and start exploring other avenues with them.”
Though the Moores found success in Arizona they had been thinking of returning to Idaho for a while.
“You know, I’m a country boy at heart, so I never thought I’d live in the city,” Moores said. “So, it was kind of an odd think to have me down there for so long … and we’ve really been thinking about doing this for over 15 years.”
In addition to selling hard to find pets and their foods, Custom Creatures works to educate people about captive breeding and will take in pets who can’t be taken care of anymore by their owners.
“We try to navigate around people letting animals go into the wild,” Moores said. “Some of this stuff just doesn’t make it if you let it go, so we offer a service to bring them in.”
To listen to the full interview with Jordan Moores, go to BYU-Idaho Radio’s podcast on Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.