New face from florida

Eh, I'll introduce myself rather than ask my questions right away...

Hello my name is Zelda. I am a biologist, I specialize in herpetology, which is the study of reptiles and amphibians. I live very close to the everglades, where I conduct research and send my results back to the labs via my computer. So, yeah, I work from home. Pretty good for a young woman, huh?

I own many large reptiles, and I basically have my own zoo. My "pets" include several crocodilian species, a komodo dragon, several monitors and a lot of snake species that live in my home in tanks. I also own a sulcata tortoise. The snakes are the only animals that live in my house. The rest are arranged in a zoo-like setting. I often have people come to my home (after hearing about my menagerie from neighbors) and pay to see my pets. Especially during the holidays and the summertime. I've been able to get most of my pets to earn their keep this way. I don't have time to arrange big visits from people though, now that the holidays are over I'm taking a break from guests.

I already own quite a large flock. I have at least 150 adult birds on my property right now. I have countless chicks. Remember that I live in florida, perhaps that's why I get chicks all year round. I don't collect eggs, I don't like them. So I order heavy breeds from the hatchery. My birds are all allowed to interbreed at will, so I have a lot of "chicken mutts", lol. Most of my birds end up as reptile food, I also eat a few. But the turkeys are still far more likely to end up on my table than my chickens, as the whole point of having chickens for me is to keep my carnivorous reptiles well fed.

 

Here's my komodo dragon. His name is..um..Dragon. lol



Keep in mind I don't like posting pictures of any animals on my ranch. Not chickens, not snakes, not even my dog. Had a bad experience with that two years ago. I'm giving you guys a very rare treat.

Here's what happened:

I proudly posted a pic online of my 6-metres-long nile crocodile, known to friends and family as "The Prince" (because he was one of my favorites, and I spoiled him rotten lol), on a reptile forum. Two weeks later, a man broke into my "zoo" and attempted to steal the croc. He never got The Prince into the truck. Crocodiles don't like strangers coming into their territory, and The Prince, as an adult male in prime condition was no exception. That man was almost killed trying to steal him. No doubt the man was planning to skin him or something. If my dog hadn't gotten my butt out of bed, there wouldn't have been anything to see except blood in the enclosure and the truck outside of it. In fact, the truck was loaded with a few of my more agreeable animals (a carpet python, a red-tailed boa, and a dozen ball pythons). The Prince ripped the man's leg clean off, had the dog not gotten me outside he would have bled to death. I live near a hospital, and I know how to give emergency first aid. So I got him to the hospital, they saved his life and then he has the nerve to report my croc to the police. The Prince had to be put down, in this case I had to shoot him. I didn't want him to be all stressed out being taken somewhere else to be killed.