[Gpdd] [MISC] St. Augustine Zoo/Croc food

Muddy Rats muddy.rats at gmail.com
Sat Mar 17 13:15:10 EDT 2007


One thing that bothers me about this is that it was in a newspaper far 
away from Florida - Denver, Colorado.  So how is it an appropriate human 
interest story?  Kids read newspapers, and I don't feel it's 
appropriate.  I'm highly offended by it.  I wouldn't dare show it to 
Dani, nor read it to her.  But then again, I don't find it appropriate 
that I should have to explain STD's to a 9 year old after she hears a 
commercial on TV about them either.  I do plan on emailing the local 
paper that ran the blurb to let them it was offensive and 
inappropriate.  I know it won't do any good as I'm not even a subscriber 
to the paper since I think it's only good for animal droppings.

I have been to Florida several times.  My grandmother took me many years 
ago to see the Seminoles wrestling gators.  This was in the days before 
casinos, and all that, so it was a major source of income for the 
Seminoles.  I was unfortunate enough to witness the wrestler get his 
thumb bit off.  It wasn't fun to watch, even before the guy got his 
thumb bit off - and yes, they did feed them chicken - the same chicken 
we would buy in a local market to prepare at home. 

I realize it's survival of the fittest, and the food chain of command in 
the wild - but I have never seen a gator, or croc, chasing after a 
guinea pig to eat it.  The zoo is in the US, and in the US guinea pigs 
are pets, and were domesticated as such many years ago.

One important thing can be done - make people aware of the croc's diet, 
and cut down on the visitors to this zoo... thus cutting down on the 
zoo's income and support.

There are plenty of flaws with the response Jaime received.  Any breeder 
will tell  you that there's no major money to be made in humane and good 
breeding.  Even in the breeding of mice and rats, they're sold for 
pennies.... you'd have to have a lot of rodents to sell to make that 
kind of money.  With mice and rats, it's easier, but still not all that 
profitable if they sell for pennies, or less each.  But with guinea 
pigs, they need more space, don't have litters as large.  Chicken 
probably costs more, but not if it was purchased in bulk, and quality 
didn't matter since it's not for human consumption.  I don't believe 
that there's a breeder breeding guinea pigs to sell as feeders.  There 
may be a breeder selling some culs (animals unfit as pets due to birth 
defects), but that's not enough to support the diet of a bunch of 
crocs.  I am more likely to believe that the crocs are being fed piggies 
that were going to be euthanized due to the lack of homes, or were 
euthanized for that reason when sold to the zoo.  There's too many 
animals that prefer their diet to be living vs. dead when they consume 
it and that's part of how they get their exercise.  Anyone selling 1,000 
piggies to feed the crocs at the zoo is only receiving about a few 
pennies a pig - multiply that by 1,000 and it's not enough to pay too 
many bills after you take into account the overhead, food, etc. for 
raising the supposed feeder piggies.

I have been to my local animal mill.  Believe me, if this guy could make 
money selling any of his stock to a croc farm in Florida, he would - and 
he isn't.  He sells to the local PetStupids and to private individuals.  
Even with all the critters he is breeding and selling, he's still not rich.

I had a friends a few years back - a married couple with kids.  They 
thought they could run a business - breeding rats and mice as feeders.  
The business didn't last long, and wasn't at all profitable.  They 
couldn't even make the monthly bills, and ended up having their house 
foreclosed on them, and getting divorced.  They didn't start this 
company, but rather bought one that was started up by someone else.  I 
have a friend who thought she could get 2 rats to breed so she could 
cheaply feed her snakes - she didn't get any snake food from them.  She 
ended up spending money to feed the rats who never made food for the snakes!

FWIW, the feeder piggies could only be humanely euthanized if they were 
humanely bred - which they obviously aren't if they're bred as feeders!  
No one would go to the expense of humanely euthanizing an animal when 
it's being used as food for another animal.

Thank you for following through with this Jaime - and the petition as 
well.  Well done!

I'm now crawling back to my sick bed.

Lori





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