Colorado Gators

You may wonder why in the world there is a gator farm in Colorado. Due to warm springs and geothermal wells in the San Luis Valley (Alamosa, elevation ~ 8000 ft), there is a Tilapia farm (they use the warm water to farm the fish). With a Tilapia farm, there are a lot of fish bones and guts to get rid of. So, they got some alligators that functioned as garbage disposals. Then other animals got siezed or donated, so there are all sorts of reptiles, birds, etc. in the middle of nowhere, CO.

100 pound tortoise.

Picture with a young gator.

Certificate of Bravery

Making her best scary face.

Asher was less convinced that this was a good plan.

We got a bucket of alligator food that was made from fish, but just looked liked oversized dog kibble. The kids had fun throwing the food to them for a while, but the gators didn't seem all the hungry. The moved slowly toward the food, if at all, so it wasn't long until they were throwing the food at the gators, just to get a more interesting reaction. It didn't work. 

So we moved on to the animals that we're used to seeing on a farm. Goats, rabbits, ostriches and emus, ducks and geese.

Becca worried that she was about to be pecked by an ostrich.

Riley having a good experience with a pygmy goat, nibbling on her fingers

Riley's nemesis. It probably was my fault, because these sheep were somewhat cornered in a small shed. I tried to feed them grass, so Riley followed suit. I gave up and began walking away. Soon we heard a blood curdling scream and crying and Riley can running out. Apparently, according to her explanation of events, "his eyes turned orange and then he butted my head with his head and knocked me down." It didn't look like she was hurt, but when we looked back at him he was still stomping the ground with a front hoof, so we quickly herded the kids away. It'll make a good story one day that Riley was head-butted by a devil sheep. By the way, the good experience with the little goat was after this, so she got over it pretty quickly.

This emu was 'growling' at me. It really sounded like a growl, almost like the veloceraptors in Jurassic Park. It also seemed like it was stalking me, so I growled back to show who was alpha and then it left me alone. Kind of freaky. 

Adventurous Riley, holding this year-old gator. It started wiggling pretty fiercely, but she didn't let go. The handler was surprised and impressed with her steadiness.