St. Augustine Alligator Farm

When you visit Florida, take your children to visit an alligator farm.

My first alligator farm visit occurred at St. Augustine Alligator Farm. It should be called an alligator and bird farm because the birds fly freely about the attraction. Staff swears that they do not feed the flying friends. I took photo after photo of trees that looked almost like they were covered with snow because they were full of a species of egrets as I walked through the farms rookery. I was mesmerized by them almost as much as by the gators.

The albino alligator exhibit houses white gators from the Bayous of Louisiana. It's definitely my favorite, but I'm not sure why. Maybe because of the oddity of it, maybe because I thought they must be the happiest alligators because in their natural environment they surely would have been killed by predators because they had no natural defense of camouflage.

The farm is also home to crocodile Maximo weighing 1,250 pounds and measuring over 15 feet. I had seen one in nature several years before in Ding Darling Refuge on Sanibel Island, but it was driving on the nature drive and really didn’t get a good few since he was lazing in the mangroves. But with Maximo visitors can get a close up view of him in his viewing tank.

I skipped the snake show by my own choice so I can not really give a feedback on that portion. My only dislike which was not a big dislike is that it was a bit odiferous in portions of the farm. Yes, that is to be expected when you have stagnant water and lots of birds. Just warning you if you have a sensitive smeller!!!