Took the family to a small family-owned zoo. Also touched an alligator. All the animals can be hand fed. Grilled some hamburgers and hand fed myself, too.

    • thagoat@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      3 days ago

      Aside from my personal views on zoos in general, I took the family and (and met our friends there) for a kids’ day. There were no trees in the enclosure, but there was a giraffe-appropriate sized tether ball. 🤷‍♂️

      The giraffea are fed carrots, green beans, and acacia leaves (at an eye-watering markup) 3 timers per day from the park guests. Judging by what I saw today that was about 100 people feeding 4 animals. I’m sure they are also receiving proper giraffe nutrition from the park caretakers. All the animals look healthy and are probably over-fed, to be honest. There are stations throughout the park to purchase food pellets that can be given to all the animals.

  • tipicaldik@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Yeah man you haven’t lived til you’ve had an animals two-foot long purple tongue come reaching through some bars and grab you by the wrist! Aye-yai-yai!

    • thagoat@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      3 days ago

      It wasn’t life-changing haha. They have short, coarse hair and if I didn’t have a carrot stick to feed him he wasn’t at all interested in the petting lol. They have a very long, purplish tongue that they curl around the food they eat to draw it into their mouths. And that tongue is wet and sticky. But hey, I got to pet one 😁

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      While they can’t be domesticated, they can be tamed. Also it’s stupid easy to hold their jaws shut. Like a 5 or 6 year old kid would have the strength to keep their jaws shut. I agree with you though. I wouldn’t get near the tame ones when I went to a gator farm in Florida. I still maintain that place is a front for the mob.

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I don’t actually remember the name. Gatorland sounds familiar though. This was almost 30 years ago now, and I was 15 at the time. It was in the panhandle near Tallahassee, on a scout trip

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          1 day ago

          Gatorland is pretty cool, and relatively affordable compared to other Orlando attractions.

          It’s basically a zoo specializing in Florida animals.