But if you keep feeding it junk food until it’s severely overweight and lazy, would that make it harmless to humans? I mean overweight to the point of being hardly able to move, etc.
I went to an alligator farm and show in Florida and the trainer said, alligators are very lazy and when you get them accustomed to being fed daily, without any work, they will be appear to be quite docile. Appear being the key word here.
He said the American crocodile is vastly different and much more aggressive and is never to be trusted at all.
Having an alligator for a pet? Tame stuff.
For real excitement, try domesticating a hyena (based on the reputation of these animals, the accompanying photos will make your hair stand on end).
Where do you live? If it’s not in the deep South, an alligator wouldn’t survive a cold winter.
Also, I hope there won’t be any small children hanging around by this pond. Because gators tend to view them as snacks.
Normal diet for an alligator: birds, turtles, fish, whatever they can snap their jaws on. I’ve seen gator shows throw in whole raw chickens. Unless this pond is huge and has an abundance of wildlife, I would think feeding such a critter would get quite expensive.
Also, please realize that a small gator is just a baby gator. There is no such thing as a miniature variety. Gators can grow to be up to 12-16 feet.
Good luck with all that.
More cats telling crocodilians, “Lizard, please!”:
I’ll bet you could train one to beat a lion!
If there is one thing I have learned here, it is that nothing can beat a lion in a fight.
Did anyone else hear this in Larry the Cable Guy’s voice?
If you are going to try to make an alligator into a pet, I have a couple of suggestions to maximize your chances of success:
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Alligators are used to warm, humid conditions. If you are going to keep him in the house, you’ll need to go to the pet store and buy him some of those nice, argyle type sweaters to keep him warm in the air conditioning. Perhaps some shoes to keep his feet nice and toasty (Alligator shoes - HA!!)
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You’ll want to housebreak him as quickly as possible. Keep a rolled up newspaper on hand, and if you catch him piddling on the carpets, smack him on the nose smartly and tell him “NO!”. Then put him in the litter box so he’ll know the proper place to eliminate (Depending on his size, you’ll need a sandbox size litter box, I’m guessing).
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In order to keep him from chewing the furniture, you’ll want to spritz him in the face with a water spritzer. This worked wonders to keep my cats from scraching the sofa. If he doesn’t react to a water spritzer, might want to keep a regular garden hose hooked up to the kitchen sink and power spray him as necessary.
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This is very exciting, and I’m hoping you will come back and keep us informed on how the alligator-to-pet experiment is going. If by some unfortunate accident your hands and arms get chewed off, please make sure you have a friend who can post your updates for us.
Best of luck to you and your new pet!!!
LouLou
OP obviously needs aid. <Heads for exit.>
Their intelligence tends to exceed that of their owner.
I think you should disregard the nay-sayers in this thread, and go for it.
Please post pics of your Uncle’s injuries.
I’m thinking about adopting a hippopotamus, btw. Should fit in the bath, I think.
I think I have developed psychic powers. I read OPs like this one and can intuit the join date.
As a kid I had a couple of gators, one grew to 4 ft and then I traded him for a tortoise. He became somewhat docile and seemed to recognize me as a source of food but that’s about it. They do appear somewhat smarter than a snake I would say.
you’re just biased against snakes…
Are you prepared for this?* (This is the standard method, BTW.)
*I think I have cited this vid before. In any case, I will continue to cite it whenever it seems appropriate, which could be quite quite often, come to think of it, but I will restrain myself.
That is quite remarkable 
It’s a whole new level of farting,