Instagator Ranch

Today I went with Rylan and his class to the Instagator ranch. I learned a lot and really enjoyed seeing Rylan have such a great time. I learned the difference between ranchers and farmers, I never really thought about the difference before but these guys go out into the marsh and collect eggs they don't breed to get the eggs. I also learned that they can determine the sex of the alligators based on the temp of the nest.
 If they want a nest full of mostly female they increase the heat to something like 94 degrees, if they want mostly male, they drop it to around 80, if they want a mix then it will be somewhere in the middle. (I forget the actual temps) They showed us new babies and we saw some 8 footers too. When they go to find the nests they fly over in a plane and just drop a full size bamboo stick with a flag off the side to mark it and it sticks straight up every time no matter how it is dropped, I thought that was pretty interesting, we watched a film that showed all of that. We also learned that there are lets say 4 million people in Louisiana and there are 3 million aligators! (I forget those actual numbers too lol I am just saying that the number ratio of gators to people is not that far off) We need to eat more gator :) We watched some walk around, we heard them hiss and make grunting sounds when they are angry, we watched a guy catch one too. We also learned that when they collect nests they have to mark them with a sharpie (or marker of some sorts) before they move them because if you turn them over then it will kill the baby inside. I will also be carrying a bamboo stick with me in the wild lol because I learned that they will pretty much back down if you hit them with it in the head. They gave us all hand fulls of marshmallows to feed the gators because I think he said the gators don't taste much and so they pretty much eat whatever. They also have some crazy way to clot blood fast so if a gator gets his leg bitten off by another predator then he won't bleed to death instead his body will stop the blood flow to that part of the body to help clot. Lots of info and super stinky fun time :) If you are looking for a fun time with your kids then go to one of these places. The one here in Covington is not expensive, they only charge around 10-12 for children and 16 for adults but they do have a military discount for 14.