One of the cooler events of the weekend occurred when Eric and I brought his two nephews – Alex and Mathieu, out to Ray’s Reptile Farm. Eric had been to it before but I had not so I figured it was a good time to go and check it out.
Note: I haven’t been hanging around kids all that much in the last few years but I just realized how they are in the car. Feelings of car-sickness, ‘are we there yet?’ and wanting to go for some fast food was the entire ride. Mom and Dad, I’m sorry for my youth. 😉
All kidding aside, they weren’t bad at all, and were cool to hang around with.
When we get to the reptile farm, Eric graciously pays my way in and we check out the wares. I must admit it was pretty cool considering I haven’t seen 75% of these animals in real life before. They had giant turtles, snakes, tarantulas (!!!), crocs and alligators. Very cool! So after meandering around for 20 minutes, you are asked to go back to this room where they have a presentation and someone brings out actual reptiles for us to hold.
The first such creature was some flying squirrel that just wouldn’t stay still so she had to bring it back into its cage. Nothing exciting there.
Then she brought out this rose coloured tarantula. Eric was the only one who held the spider in his hand as both his nephews and I were deathly afraid of tarantulas. I had more reason to be afraid after something spooked the spider and it enabled its defense mechanism on the handler. Supposedly it shot out hairs from its body all over the womans arms and neck and then she was itching profusely. Not a deadly touch, but an annoying one, nonetheless.
Then she brought out this huge snake that wrapped around her body. The kids gathered round and held the snake up – I would say it was at least 3 meters long. I felt it’s skin. Pretty rough actually. Never touched snake skin before.
Oh yeah, I can’t forget the giant turtle they brought out. He started walking towards the exit and Eric yelled out “Quick, he’s getting away!” We all had a great laugh at that.
There was a break of 15 minutes so we meandered around the souvenir shop where we heard someone ask if they had seen (mumble mumble, couldn’t catch the name of the species) because one had escaped. Eric and I just looked at each other and wondered what adventure we were getting ourselves into. Visions of one of the nephews wrestling a crocodile came to mind.
When we returned to the presentation, they had a feeding demonstration. They had some toads eat cockroaches which was neat in the fact that they told us how toads don’t have throats so when something is in its mouth, they use their eyes to push the food down into their stomach. Coolness!
Then there were snakes eating mice. Nothing exciting there.
Then he brought us to the Nile Crocodile where he fed some rats to them. Overall, I was semi-impressed as he jumped in the air for one of them, but the handler mentioned that they are usually more hungry than this and are just getting used to the new cage. He also mentioned how the Nile Crocodile (or perhaps all crocs?) are the only reptile who actively pursue mammals. So if you were going for a swim at the same time every morning, it would be smart enough to detect the pattern and attack you one morning. Insane! He also mentioned how alligators don’t attack humans. There have been 18 reported cases of injuries in the past 65 years and they usually deal with people who are making movements above the water so the alligator thinks “Hey, what’s that?”, takes a chomp out of the arm and then realizes it’s nothing it’s interested in. Granted, it still sucks for the guy who lost an arm but it’s good to know that alligators are our friends (generally).
All in all, I was impressed with the reptile farm and would recommend it to anyone who wants an fun activity to do during a morning/afternoon. Eric said the last time they went, the giant python ate a whole (dead) chicken. Now THAT would have been cool.
Two very enthusiastic thumbs up for Ray’s Reptile Farm.