I imagine that most people who visit Kliebert’s Turtle and Alligator Farm are drawn there to see the alligators. Especially if they’re fans of the History Channel’s reality show Swamp People which made cult celebrities of Mike Kliebert and his son T-Mike. But on this day’s tour lead by T-Mike, I find the non-stop stream of facts he’s tossing over his shoulder as we hike past the turtle pond pretty darned fascinating as well. It seems that in a busy year the farm raises as many as a million turtles. A MILLION turtles. The vast majority of which get sent by air overnight to Europe and Asia, where they are in demand for a wide range of uses—in China the lucky ones are sold at festivals where it’s believed that buying and releasing a turtle brings good luck. The not-so-lucky may get boiled, much like we boil crawfish. This is also the point where T-Mike tells us that each week they go to Henderson and buy ten thousand pounds of rotten fish for the turtles and alligators. And the turtles eat most of it.
But soon we arrive at the first of several ponds full of alligators. And it’s clear that this farm boy is as much in his particular element as I was in a cornfield growing up on a farm in Iowa.
T-Mike ticks off a long list of how all the parts from the gators in this pond are destined to be used—the hides for shoes, the hearts for research, other internal organs for eastern-style medicines, the paws for back scratchers in the gift shop. Then one of the women on the tour lets out a shriek as she discovers that there is a huge alligator on a leash snoozing just on the other side of the platform where we’re standing. At this point T-Mike introduces us to his “Louisiana Yard-Dog,” and invites the ten-year old on the tour to come sit on him. T-Mike handles the gator with the same familiarity he would a pet dog, and after noting that the gator’s mouth has been carefully secured shut for the moment with electrical tape, the young man climbs aboard.
Then after the rest of the group takes a picture of the gator lying across their laps, we’re on to the final pond—in which every one of the gators is fifty-four years old.
That’s because this is the “retirement home” for the original breeding stock acquired by T-Mike’s grandfather when he started this farm back in 1957, the first place in the country to legally commercialize alligator farming. After a brief history lesson, and a mention that the center of the pond is a bird refuge (because there the birds don’t have to worry about any predators except the alligators) T-Mike takes his wallet and cell phone out of his shorts, lays them on the bank, and calmly wades into the water hyacinth-encrusted pound full of thousand pound alligators—where grabs one and holds up his head for us to view, as calmly as if he were showing us his pet gerbil.
And yes, there’s a gift shop at the end with T-shirts, and the aforementioned back scratchers, but much of the charm of touring Kliebert’s is that this is much more like a field trip to a working farm than it is like visiting a tourist attraction.
And for me, watching T-Mike in his element alone, was worth every penny of the admission price.
Kliebert's Turtle and Alligator Farm 41083 West Yellow Water Rd. Hammond, LA (800) 854-9164 Open everyday through October from Noon–dusk.
