american alligator

[Oddball]

Next door, tucked in behind several different species of bamboo and filled with giant water lilies, is a fenced in small one acre farm pond (one of 5 ponds on the property)...

 

[Oddball]

In the pond is a former animal control rescue critter that has grown from 3ft (at her rescue) to her present 9+ ft length. This is Ruby:

 

[yayfish24]

In the pond is a former animal control rescue critter that has grown from 3ft (at her rescue) to her present 9+ ft length. This is Ruby:

I dont see ruby.

Nevermind. For some reason the pics didnt show up the first time I looked at the thread.

 

[Oddball]

She does hibernate each winter in a mud cave she dug herself. She's trained to come to white plastic shopping bags since she's fed from these bags. We just visited her yesterday and fed her 5lbs of thawed catfish nuggets and a family pack of chicken wings.

 

[yayfish24]

Im not sure if its just me or the pics but her nose looks pretty long. I can tell its a gator and not a croc but the bose seems longer then usual to me. Am I crazy?

 

[Oddball]

You can tell she loves having food brought to her. The bank of the farm pond is pretty steep and 30 ft in height. Just show her a chicken quarter and she'll climb it PDQ.

This is an old established farm pond that my neighbor's great grandfather started nearly 90 years ago. His great grandmother planted the lilies, bamboo, and white cypress all around the ponds. The ponds are stocked with minnows, flathead cats, bullheads, bass, perch, crappie, white amur, buffalo, mosquitofish, crayfish, ghost shrimp, gammarus, etc. Right now, there are millions of bullfrog tadpoles in all of the ponds along with several species of tree frog tadpoles and toad tadpoles.

 

[mahemaheman85]

wow, beautiful property, beautiful gator, im glad i already decided on a caiman though lol cause as soon as my gf saw these pics, she was like no way do i want one that could eat me so easily hahaha

 

[ceeej31]

wow, beautiful property, beautiful gator, im glad i already decided on a caiman though lol cause as soon as my gf saw these pics, she was like no way do i want one that could eat me so easily hahaha

keep in mind that while most caimans wont get as big as a gator, they tend to be more high strung and aggressive than gators

 

[Lepisosteus platyrhincus]

yep!! a 4ft caiman may not be as big as a 9 ft gator but he/she will be more high strung and spastic

 

[krzr3000]

Nice pics and story oddball.