Alligator Disposal System Farmer Finds Use For Dead Chickens

Amid the pines and plowed fields, hundreds of alligators snooze on the sandy banks of a pond, basking in the brilliant sunshine of a balmy winter day.

With 1,200 alligators in an area the size of a football field, the banks are littered and the pond teeming with the reptiles, their long snouts and menacing dark eyes peeking out of the water.

Alligators are a spinoff of Georgia’s booming $2.1 billion-a-year poultry industry. They are an attractive option to other methods of disposing of the hundreds of thousands of chickens that die before they reach the slaughterhouse.

A farmer with 350,000 chickens can expect to lose about 21,000, or 6 percent, in a year, said Mark Glass, a Mitchell County poultry producer, who opened one of the state’s newest alligator farms last April.

His gators are only 4 feet long, 2 feet short of the length he needs to sell their hides and meat. But he still has a lot of respect for them.

“I wasn’t afraid last summer because they were small,” Glass said. “This summer, they’ll be 5 feet long. If one of them grabbed your ankle that would be it. The others would grab on, spin and rip you apart.”

Alligators have been hunted relentlessly and were placed on the federal endangered-species list in 1973. They made a remarkable comeback and are now classified as a threatened species.

Last summer, Glass’ gators ate about 2,000 pounds of ground chicken a day, dumped onto the banks from 5-gallon pails.

“They’ll chase you right up the bank,” he said. “They’re extremely hungry and extremely aggressive. They devour it in no time.”

Joe Gaines, another Mitchell county poultry producer, was nearly attacked while his back was turned.

“This is not guaranteed safe, like working with a cow,” he said. “One snap and you lose a hand.”

It takes a sizable investment - at least $250,000 - to start an alligator farm.

Glass has not sold any meat or hides. Because alligators become dormant in the winter, they have not been much help at disposing of chicken carcasses since October.

“If I never sold one, I’ve got a very, very expensive dead-bird disposal system,” Glass said. “But I’m still optimistic.”

He has decided to build a heated building where the alligators can eat and grow year-round.

He also plans to increase his reptile farm to 5,000 gators. That would allow him to kill about 1,500 a year, after they grow to 6 feet.

Georgia is a johnny-come-lately to alligator farming. But with high feed prices and low hide prices, even some of the established farms in Louisiana and Florida need to find innovative solutions to survive, said Roger Ruvell of Geneva, Fla.

Ruvell, who has been working with crocodiles and alligators for 30 years, has his hatchlings raised in Mexico near a poultry farm that supplies plenty of dead chickens. Leather products made from their hides are shipped back to him.

Ruvell believes some Florida gators eventually may be shipped to Georgia poultry farms to fatten up and mature.

“A farmer who can cut his feed costs considerably … has a tremendous advantage,” said Ruvell. “Properly managed, it has good potential up there.”