I spent the day at a croc farm. I've seen crocs before but I wanted to see the non-zoo version. These cros are farmed ethically. Any wild croc that is used is only used for breeding. Only the hatchlings are used for product. Products are varied, Leather obviously, some meet, the teeth and skulls are also sold.
The big reason why only farmed crocs are harvested is that the fashion industry only likes a small scale pattern from the belly. Which means these crocs are of non-breeding age. So if the wild crocs were harvested then there could be an issue with hunting them to local extinction.
Oh these are salties, AKA Salt Water crocodiles. Biggest baddest crocs in the world. 4.5 meters is average for a full grow male in the wild. Put that in perspective you are not even 2 meters tall. On the day I was at the farm they told us of a reported croc sighting all the way down near Brisbane. In modern Australian times this has never happened before. Look out people there coming to us.
Croc hatching. Yep saw that.
Pretty cool even if you have seen it on TV before. Basically this is a lazy croc. Once the nose starts to stick out the croc can hatch any time. A lazy one is one that doesn't try to hard to crack the outer hard shell. So in this case the handler does that for it. This leaves the soft leathery inner shell. This can be torn by the baby croc quite easily. It really is amazing how big these guys are. And those tiny teeth are SHARP. out of the shell it can give you stitches.
Croc Feeding
They took us out to the adult pens where the guide gave us a little run down of the farm. He also gave us a few tips on dealing with crocs in the wild. I'll sum up the tips here.
- If you see a croc. run
- If you see a croc nest mound. run
- If you see a croc slide. run
- If you are pitching a tent in a croc area do it up and over 100 meters from the water.
As for the farm we were shown the adult pens. Where typically there are 1 male and 1 female per pen. However in one pen there were 14 male crocs. This was so that they fatten up and get ready for breeding. These guys are eating machines. Half a chicken in a chomp. And they could easily eat a lot more in one gulp.
Croc holding, Cause I can.
No visit to a farm would be complete without a little put of petting the baby animals. Cute little guy. Very docile. This one is very used to being handled by humans. So he was basically just hanging out there. Very soft skin. You could feel the power in the tail.
Even the little kids got to hold and touch it. Which was rather funny. Two grand mothers were having heart attacks watching the kids touch and hold the croc.
cute baby crocodiles !
ReplyDeleteWOW! Looks soo cool!
ReplyDeleteEmma