After Awhile, Crocodile!

Aww...snuggles

We spent Good Friday at the Reptile Farm.   "Lovemore" was our guide, although he's "Crazy Snake Man" to me.  He showed us Black Mambas, Green Mambas, Gaboon Vipers, Puff Adders, Spitting Cobras, and a Python.  He pulled out a harmless brown snake for us to hold.  Isaac did it enthusiastically.  I did it reluctantly.  Eric and Alex adamantly refused.

Who wouldn't want to hold this guy?

Most of the snakes eat day old chicks.  To feed them, Crazy Snake Man looks at the snakes to determine their body language.  If they aren't hostile, he runs around to the back of the cage and throws in the chicks.  The Black Mambas are the trickiest--they are aggressive, deadly, and keen on escaping.

Crazy Snake Man captured most of the snakes for the exhibits.  The locals call him to remove serpents from their fields.  One family opened the hood of their car and found a Black Mamba hanging out, and Crazy Snake Man came to the rescue.

I love the idea of snakes being captured, so here's the crazy part:  if the Reptile Farm has too many snakes, they will throw a few over the fence and into the river.

"Oh, so the fence keeps them from coming back?" asked Eric.

"No.  They just drift down stream and find a new home," our guide replied.

I had the heebie-jeebies walking through the neatly manicured picnic area to the adult crocodile exhibit.  I was sure a Spitting Cobra would drop from one of the trees.

But the snakes seemed like child's play when I met the 200 adult crocodiles--some weighing half a ton and 15 feet long.  And only a measly chainlink fence separated us from these beasts.  I asked Crazy Snake Man if the fence would really hold up to a croc attack, and he said, "Yes...so long as he wasn't really provoked."

I could have touched this fella...

That's when I looked down at my son, who was poking a stick through the hole in the fence.  I yelled, "Isaac, didn't you just hear what the guide said?"  "But mom," he replied innocently, "I wasn't going to do anything."

And that's when I wrapped up the tour and escorted the kids to the picnic area for lunch.  We shared some fries and a crocodile burger, which oddly enough, does taste like chicken.