La Ferme aux Crocodiles

Last month, the Girl & I went to the Crocodile Farm in Pierre Latte. I've heard a lot about it but have never been there. It was about a 45 mins drive. Very well sign posted so wasn't too difficult to find (I relished taking a longer drive than usual).

The Farm is a covered greenhouse & made to resemble the tropics ie. controlled temperature indoors. It is huge & we got to see crocodiles by the hundreds, if not thousands. As you go along the planked walkway, there would be useful explanations like why do crocodiles stay still most of the time ? why do they keep mouths ? what do they eat ?....which came in handy when I had to field all of the Girl's questions.

The tropical greenhouse

The Girl was of course thrilled to see all the crocodiles & she squealed each time she saw one of them move. For me, I'll have to admit, it got a little monotonous after a while cos there is only so much of crocodiles one can take. What I found interesting tho was the laboratory where they raise baby crocodiles & the few giant turtles on the farm (it reminded me of the ones on Galapagos).

Baby crocodiles

Highlight of the visit has got to be feeding time. We got lucky cos we were there on a Wed & feeding is only done every Wed & Sun. Finally we saw some movement in the crocodiles. I was hoping for some drama ie. to see them fight for food but no such luck (I guess I'll just have to be content on watching it on Discovery Channel).

Crocodile benches

Giant turtles

Just outside the farm is a play area for kids with swings, slides & tables where we had our little tea break. There was even a pond filled with terrapins.

Side note : Coincidentally, a few days after that visit, there was a program on TV showing an international team of crocodile experts in India to figure out why the crocodiles were dying rapidly. The French expert was the man we had just seen feeding the crocodiles !!