Tips and help in the processes of starting a reptile zoo

[One eyed]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of doing all the forms and permits and applications for setting up a reptile zoo. Initially it will be only australian species of snakes and turtles and crocs. Not in a position remotely to be able to afford any imports etc. Has anyone gone through and set up a zoo does anyone have tips and tricks for it. Anything to speed it all up ? Tips on hiring correct staff, I personally have alot of experience with elapids and snakes.

Tips with dealing with council, I am in qld if this helps.


*almost all of my snakes to be displayed I currently already have or have already sorted* so not a pipe dream to have elapids. Have my licence currently and a room full of them.

Initially it will only be snakes and turtles, next year we are hoping to be all ready to move to our farm and have crocs ( council pending )

Does anyone else keep elapids in there zoos what's some problems you've encountered?

 

[MRJ]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of doing all the forms and permits and applications for setting up a reptile zoo. Initially it will be only australian species of snakes and turtles and crocs. Not in a position remotely to be able to afford any imports etc. Has anyone gone through and set up a zoo does anyone have tips and tricks for it. Anything to speed it all up ? Tips on hiring correct staff, I personally have alot of experience with elapids and snakes.

Tips with dealing with council, I am in qld if this helps.


*almost all of my snakes to be displayed I currently already have or have already sorted* so not a pipe dream to have elapids. Have my licence currently and a room full of them.

Initially it will only be snakes and turtles, next year we are hoping to be all ready to move to our farm and have crocs ( council pending )

Does anyone else keep elapids in there zoos what's some problems you've encountered?

Your Council will be concerned that (a) your location permits your use, ie under the planning scheme. (b) the number of toilets, car park spaces etc is enough for your planned visitation (c) access roads are suitable for the expected increase in traffic. I know of one case down here where someone interested in opening a wildlife park was told they would have to seal the access road before they could open. They did not go ahead.

Keeping elapids and crocs etc is mostly an OH&S problem. Do you have adequate and documented procedures in place? Trained staff? First aid? Adequate facilities, ie well designed exhibits, double doors between exhibit service area and the public, all this is just what I can think of off the top of my head and we don't keep elapids currently. Not doing this properly will cost you a fortune in public liability insurance and you will be for the high jump if you have a serious accident.

$10,000,000 public liability insurance.

Have you written a marketing plan? What is your marketing budget? If there is one thing I learnt it is that you can't spend enough in your first year. You are only new once. Marketing is your number one concern.

 

[One eyed]

Marketing plan and budget has all been done I've owned a butcher shop since I was 18 and only just got out now 27. Marketing dealing with safefood and it's stupid laws etc. Procedures is the name of the game in meat industry. So in regards to those aspects procedures are over done.

Building set up. It isn't possible at all for the public to get to the snakes. Fully sealed from public side only access is rear which is though two doors. Door to access behind enclosures is locked and only people who are trained and signed off and know procedures will have access. My snake room at home currently has two locked doors as I keep multiple inland Tiapans and this was a stipulation when I got initial licence..

10mil public liability seems a little low, my butcher shop was required by safefood for 20 and our last shop tenancy required 30m plus additional clauses we had to issues 10 m Into the shopping centre so theoretically if someone slipped walking past it was our insurance not the centres. Clever for them.

Our current issue with council on getting our farm isn't with regards to road as there is a council quarry up the road and has to be suitable for them. They had some silly ideas about car parking spaces, 60% required to be shaded. Toliets we haven't had a issue but I was told and know from shopping centres we will need to have enough room for 24% of full visitation to have space to go to the toilet? Is this still applicable for us or only in a shopping centre we've had no avail at finding out.

Going back to marketing we've got a few ideas rolling around, I have studied bachelor of business majoring in marketing whilst I owned business it helped it sounds silly bit saved us a fortune in marketing as we did it ourself. Our key point of difference is going to be largest collections of reptiles on display kinda thing, from my count and experience that's not a difficult feat to beat.

Thank you for your help always appreciate anyone's Input

 

[One eyed]

I should note and add aswell. Other additions to our Initial plan is

Fish and coral. Massive coral and salt water fan and my father is immensely into the tropical fish and breeding. Turtles will be going in.

A salt water coral exhibit.
Most chilids available in australia father breeds chilids.
Bluespotted stingrays and epulette sharks. Port jackson shark. ( yes experience in keeping these we have and appropriate sized tank)

Peacocks ( lame but alot of people have never seen them, we have some nice colour mutation ones at the farm)

Some finches birds etc.

I will be getting my fresh water croc in coming weeks, currently have a wildlife exhibitors licence and using it to get stock up.

A clownfish tank will behind ticket counter as kids love clownfish.

We will be exhibiting other animals but mainly will be our snakes initially. From there with money time permits and experience others will come

 

[Riley]

One thing I can recommend both from working in a zoo and visiting lots as well is that most people will spend more time at an exhibit for an animal that they can touch/feed/interact with somehow. As much as your speciality is elapids, make sure you have the smaller stuff that people can touch (under the supervision of staff) or even pay to have a hold of, just think of all the people that go to the zoo or wildlife park and get a photo with a snake or croc etc. plus I’m the early days this will give you some much needed cash flow for expansion.

Venomous snake demonstrations are always a hit with families so they are another way to get the public interested in animals in a more interactive way than just looking at tanks.

 

[One eyed]

Never fully put thought into the touching aspect as our main focus is stuff that's just simply to dangerous to consider. Will be bringing in a fair python collection so this could be adjusted so we can organise a touching and pictures.

For instance peacocks say buy a cup of food and they can feed them? Or is that just silly thinking? Some of our pythons we could get people to feed , Would need to be through some kind of trap door and have to use a modified tongs but I believe it would be possible so those sorts of things ?

 

[MRJ]

Marketing plan and budget has all been done I've owned a butcher shop since I was 18 and only just got out now 27. Marketing dealing with safefood and it's stupid laws etc. Procedures is the name of the game in meat industry. So in regards to those aspects procedures are over done.

Building set up. It isn't possible at all for the public to get to the snakes. Fully sealed from public side only access is rear which is though two doors. Door to access behind enclosures is locked and only people who are trained and signed off and know procedures will have access. My snake room at home currently has two locked doors as I keep multiple inland Tiapans and this was a stipulation when I got initial licence..

10mil public liability seems a little low, my butcher shop was required by safefood for 20 and our last shop tenancy required 30m plus additional clauses we had to issues 10 m Into the shopping centre so theoretically if someone slipped walking past it was our insurance not the centres. Clever for them.

Our current issue with council on getting our farm isn't with regards to road as there is a council quarry up the road and has to be suitable for them. They had some silly ideas about car parking spaces, 60% required to be shaded. Toliets we haven't had a issue but I was told and know from shopping centres we will need to have enough room for 24% of full visitation to have space to go to the toilet? Is this still applicable for us or only in a shopping centre we've had no avail at finding out.

Going back to marketing we've got a few ideas rolling around, I have studied bachelor of business majoring in marketing whilst I owned business it helped it sounds silly bit saved us a fortune in marketing as we did it ourself. Our key point of difference is going to be largest collections of reptiles on display kinda thing, from my count and experience that's not a difficult feat to beat.

Thank you for your help always appreciate anyone's Input

$10,000,000 public liability is standard minimum in tourism industry. If you think you need more go for it.

Re councils talk to Economic Development, talk up the economic benefits and the number of people employed. They are your allies in Council. With planning talk down numbers of visitors.

Re marketing you will need a totally different approach to your current businesses. They rely on passing traffic and regular, frequent repeat traffic. Your reptile zoo is a destination in itself. Your butchers shop is a neighborhood business, you will get very little business for your reptile park from your neighborhood. Repeat traffic more frequently than once a year will be rare. You need to work on earned media, most bought media is useless. Social media is also very important.

Expect your first year to be your best year, maybe for half a decade. I know you don't believe me on that but that is a fact in the attractions industry.

At the end of the day what you exhibit is unimportant. What is important is the story you tell and the experience you offer.

Unless of course you are marketing only to Zoochatters, then just lay on the species.

 

[Riley]

I don’t think peacock are that interested in hand feeding, they usually just scratch around doing their own thing, if you have the space/available funds maybe some roos or wallabies to feed would be a nice addition. Or even just the opportunity to feed some of the birds you have planned already.

Even just getting out some lizards or pythons for people to touch throughout the day is interesting for most people, you’d be surprised by how fascinated people are by just patting even something as simple as a bearded dragon.

 

[One eyed]

$10,000,000 public liability is standard minimum in tourism industry. If you think you need more go for it.

Re councils talk to Economic Development, talk up the economic benefits and the number of people employed. They are your allies in Council. With planning talk down numbers of visitors.

Re marketing you will need a totally different approach to your current businesses. They rely on passing traffic and regular, frequent repeat traffic. Your reptile zoo is a destination in itself. Your butchers shop is a neighborhood business, you will get very little business for your reptile park from your neighborhood. Repeat traffic more frequently than once a year will be rare. You need to work on earned media, most bought media is useless. Social media is also very important.

Expect your first year to be your best year, maybe for half a decade. I know you don't believe me on that but that is a fact in the attractions industry.

At the end of the day what you exhibit is unimportant. What is important is the story you tell and the experience you offer.

Unless of course you are marketing only to Zoochatters, then just lay on the species.

Nope I believe you on the first year part. Meat retail first year is great then it's a struggle to build. Wholesale is almost impossible to start and forever a struggle to build. So believing first be the best for a very long time isn't hard to believe. I was planning on on good then 6 bad.

Yeah that's for sure marketing is already drastically different thankfully I've had experience doing marketing for other businesses and done some work for a small water park. Totally different ball of fish. Thank you for that might look into them and give them a call.

I don’t think peacock are that interested in hand feeding, they usually just scratch around doing their own thing, if you have the space/available funds maybe some roos or wallabies to feed would be a nice addition. Or even just the opportunity to feed some of the birds you have planned already.

Even just getting out some lizards or pythons for people to touch throughout the day is interesting for most people, you’d be surprised by how fascinated people are by just patting even something as simple as a bearded dragon.

That's a good idea on our farm we have plenty of space for some roos, I just didn't want to be the same as everyone else come and see the roos and feed them but after the conversations here might be a better way to include it. On the plus side on our farm location once approved they'll be able to see wild ones too. So will just bite the bullet and start to look into the roos too, improvements already made haha.

My father is wanting to do horse and carriage rides a few times a day around the farm and have scenery etc. But that isn't in our Initial opening only for when we can fully set up on our farm.

 

[Dassie rat]

Keeping elapids and crocs etc is mostly an OH&S problem. Do you have adequate and documented procedures in place? Trained staff? First aid? Adequate facilities, ie well designed exhibits, double doors between exhibit service area and the public, all this is just what I can think of off the top of my head and we don't keep elapids currently. Not doing this properly will cost you a fortune in public liability insurance and you will be for the high jump if you have a serious accident.

I agree with MRJ. Do you have a supply of antivenins to counteract bites by the elapids? Are you near a local hospital and does it have the facilities to deal with snake bites? I hope that nobody gets bitten by an elapid (or a crocodile for that matter) at your zoo, but you need to prepare for that happening. If a visitor were killed by one of your reptiles, you and your collection may not recover from the bad publicity, never mind the financial implications.

 

[CGSwans]

Out of curiosity, what size is your farm? And where is it?

 

[Andrew Swales]

Re marketing you will need a totally different approach to your current businesses. They rely on passing traffic and regular, frequent repeat traffic. Your reptile zoo is a destination in itself. Your butchers shop is a neighborhood business, you will get very little business for your reptile park from your neighborhood. Repeat traffic more frequently than once a year will be rare. You need to work on earned media, most bought media is useless. Social media is also very important.

Expect your first year to be your best year, maybe for half a decade. I know you don't believe me on that but that is a fact in the attractions industry.

At the end of the day what you exhibit is unimportant. What is important is the story you tell and the experience you offer.

Unless of course you are marketing only to Zoochatters, then just lay on the species.

This is very interesting and shows how different it is 'down under'.

Our own visitor numbers have grown incrementally, with the first year the lowest. We now attract over ten times the number we did in year one. The same is the case for most if not all other Parks in the UK.

In our case almost all our footfall is from local visits and many are repeat within any year, some on annual passes but very many casual.

What is exhibited is very important. Yorkshire Wildlife Park (a major player in the UK and a very new zoo) cemented its position with 'rescued' lions and polar bears. Wild Place Bristol has done the same. In our case, the arrival of white tigers some years ago doubled our footfall.

But yes, 'laying on the species', is of interest to a very small market, and to a degree something of a personal whim. Your general visitors must have enough breadth and quality of experience to make their entry fee feel value for money. Cheap, reduced entry can be associated with lack of quality, but may drive footfall at the potential expense of income.

 

[One eyed]

I agree with MRJ. Do you have a supply of antivenins to counteract bites by the elapids? Are you near a local hospital and does it have the facilities to deal with snake bites? I hope that nobody gets bitten by an elapid (or a crocodile for that matter) at your zoo, but you need to prepare for that happening. If a visitor were killed by one of your reptiles, you and your collection may not recover from the bad publicity, never mind the financial implications.

Already have plans for that, I personally already keep 47 elapids. And breed a few species. I personally need to keep antivenons for two species as they are not found in my locality at great costs to myself. the rest I among other "donate founds" to keep at the hospital. Visitors at the zoo wouldn't even remotely be able to get close to any of the elapids and initially and for a long foreseeable future only immediate family will do any husbandry on them, we are all trained and deal with them on the regular. On a side note I actually find it ironic people are so scared of snake bites, don't get me wrong they need to be respected a lot but I have a dog just outside my window which poses a far greater threat to people then any snake does. And yes the local hospital is more then well equipped to handle it, theyre actually quite good at it.

Out of curiosity, what size is your farm? And where is it?

About 30 mins from Ipswich QLD or 1.5hrs from Brisbane. We have 798.8 acres to play around with.

This is very interesting and shows how different it is 'down under'.

Our own visitor numbers have grown incrementally, with the first year the lowest. We now attract over ten times the number we did in year one. The same is the case for most if not all other Parks in the UK.

In our case almost all our footfall is from local visits and many are repeat within any year, some on annual passes but very many casual.

What is exhibited is very important. Yorkshire Wildlife Park (a major player in the UK and a very new zoo) cemented its position with 'rescued' lions and polar bears. Wild Place Bristol has done the same. In our case, the arrival of white tigers some years ago doubled our footfall.

But yes, 'laying on the species', is of interest to a very small market, and to a degree something of a personal whim. Your general visitors must have enough breadth and quality of experience to make their entry fee feel value for money. Cheap, reduced entry can be associated with lack of quality, but may drive footfall at the potential expense of income.

Our initial point of difference of Main exhibit will be our broad range of elapids. and well reptiles. Our "deadly section" but I totally get your point in re white tigers.

 

[CGSwans]

About 30 mins from Ipswich QLD or 1.5hrs from Brisbane. We have 798.8 acres to play around with.

So you effectively have no limitations, aside from planning constraints, on future plans. I concur with the kangaroo suggestion and would add a couple of other easily obtained species to feed, such as deer or alpacas.

One note of caution: you are in a market with no single dominant zoo but with intense competition: Irwinland, Lone Pine, Currumbin, Darling Downs, Qld Zoo and the soon-to-open D’Aguilar Wildlife are all chasing pieces of the Brisbane market, and some have very deep pockets and established connections with the tourist sector.

 

[One eyed]

So you effectively have no limitations, aside from planning constraints, on future plans. I concur with the kangaroo suggestion and would add a couple of other easily obtained species to feed, such as deer or alpacas.

One note of caution: you are in a market with no single dominant zoo but with intense competition: Irwinland, Lone Pine, Currumbin, Darling Downs, Qld Zoo and the soon-to-open D’Aguilar Wildlife are all chasing pieces of the Brisbane market, and some have very deep pockets and established connections with the tourist sector.

Entirely understand with the competition and big players coming from my last lost of business was hard going against the big boys. we were usually told to f off but we ended up breaking into the market eventually caused enough problems the big boys came and bought me out, now I want to focus on life time passion and something ive always been involved in is animals.

will definitely look into other stuff deer could be a pain due to them been a massive pest here.

Your point of concern is actually a point of concern of mine, no way we could ever compete with them in respects to tigers girrafes etc. but that's not what I am about. that and I have no experience with. for me wanting to have a huge collection of elapids crocodiles birds etc where they aren't overly into it. not to throw shade on Australia zoo but I visited it last week there Malay King Cobra was in shed 110% should not of been on display like it was. and they only had 7 separate species of elapids not what I would call a display. As you mentioned alpacas, we could even incorporate farm animals and have pony rides etc, gives us something were known for and a damn good reason to come to us as well as been competitive with zoos that have a fancy giraffe etc.

a lot of the reason I want to heavily focus on elapid with others is youd be surprised everyone and anyone who knows you are keeping one wants to see them. why not build a place for all to come and see.

 

[One eyed]

So you effectively have no limitations, aside from planning constraints, on future plans. I concur with the kangaroo suggestion and would add a couple of other easily obtained species to feed, such as deer or alpacas.

One note of caution: you are in a market with no single dominant zoo but with intense competition: Irwinland, Lone Pine, Currumbin, Darling Downs, Qld Zoo and the soon-to-open D’Aguilar Wildlife are all chasing pieces of the Brisbane market, and some have very deep pockets and established connections with the tourist sector.

Another point of difference is we have a colour morph inland taipan in our personal collection its taken me and my father 5 generations and a lot of breeding and hard work sourcing certain lines to breed this morph. could bet my lifes fortune no zoo would have it, but we will. not to mention were hoping this lot of hatchies of redbellies we will get a albino. there is only a few of them and only in private collections.

 

[animal_expert01]

@One eyed if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to ask a few questions.

What species of reptiles do you currently keep? Are you currently breeding any? What species of reptile would you plan to keep?

If all plans go ahead what species were you planning on keeping in you saltwater aquarium?

Really hope you are successful and everything goes well!

 

[CGSwans]

Another point of difference is we have a colour morph inland taipan in our personal collection its taken me and my father 5 generations and a lot of breeding and hard work sourcing certain lines to breed this morph. could bet my lifes fortune no zoo would have it, but we will. not to mention were hoping this lot of hatchies of redbellies we will get a albino. there is only a few of them and only in private collections.

These would be a cool draw card for reptile enthusiasts - but there’s only so many of them. Most casual visitors won’t be all that familiar with what a taipan is *supposed* to look like, so a morph won’t mean anything to them.

 

[One eyed]

These would be a cool draw card for reptile enthusiasts - but there’s only so many of them. Most casual visitors won’t be all that familiar with what a taipan is *supposed* to look like, so a morph won’t mean anything to them.

This is a good point, my idea was to show a typical look with colour morphs to cater for all levels. and a sign board showing how we got there with pictures etc. a lot of the reason for this thread was this, I'm clearly only focusing on a limited market others might suggest like you have hey put this to expand. definitely getting me thinking a little on the layout to focus less on reptiles and have additional exhibits to open it up to more. We keep tarantulas at home I guess things like this too we could display, they'd be hard to exhibit that's for sure.

@One eyed if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to ask a few questions.

What species of reptiles do you currently keep? Are you currently breeding any? What species of reptile would you plan to keep?

If all plans go ahead what species were you planning on keeping in you saltwater aquarium?

Really hope you are successful and everything goes well!

Currently but not limited to Only putting species we have significant knowledge and amount of\
Eastern Water Dragon (breeding)
Gipsland Water Dragons (breeding)
Hybrids Water Dragons (breeding) Not a fan at all but a substantial market for this
Central Bearded Dragon (internal breeding meaning not to be sold)
Eastern Bearded Dragon
Lace Monitor ( cant be displayed)
Goanna
Frilled neck lizard
Red Belly Black (breeding)
Inland taipan (breeding)
Coastal Taipan (breeding)
Common Death Adder
Lowlands Copperhead
Bandie Bandie
Mainland Tiger Snake (colour morphed and doesn't look right)
Eastern Brown
Western Brown (Mother was bitten by one of these)
Colletes Snake (breeding)

we have more in our family but list is long and all similar now on

Saltwater
Aside from the afore mentioned species
Lionfish
Some angels
Firehawks
Urchins
still really thinking out and planning it so far, more thought was and has been put into the reptile enclosures with the satwater tanks been marked down as were they will be going. but if you got any ideas or thoughts all ears. the bluespotted and port Jackson will be getting the highlight as they have a soft spot in my heart.

My plan is actually to have the top 15 deadly Australian snakes on exhibit, were only shy of one but with contacts finding us one and waiting to be inspected to see if we have adequate enclosure we will get our hands on it. its actually funny cause we once had the cops called on us for growing drugs cause both my house and parents we have boarded and sealed over some windows in a room so the only entrance is the door way (required to keep venomous snakes on restricted licence or exhibtors in a locked escape proof room)

 

[One eyed]

@One eyed if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to ask a few questions.

What species of reptiles do you currently keep? Are you currently breeding any? What species of reptile would you plan to keep?

If all plans go ahead what species were you planning on keeping in you saltwater aquarium?

Really hope you are successful and everything goes well!

On a side not starting to look into and will eventually start getting skinks and those sorts of lizards as well as frogs etc, but with our current space at home its fairly limited. We also have a few tarantulas my personal favorite is the phlogius Proserpine look it up they're not flashy like other but the colour depth in them is intense and beautiful to keep