The alligators needed to be weighed, and Kent and I attempted a new method—on a hanging scale. We do this every week since having a regular measurement of their weights helps us to determine that they are in good health, but recently they’ve become a bit harder to weigh. They are growing, getting bigger and stronger, and have been much harder to wrangle into the box that sets on the scale, so it was time to try something new.

Here’s Kent after he pulled the gator out of the water.

The gator gets put into a bag:

Time to hang the bag from the scale:

The gator getting released back into the exhibit:

Since our gators are still young, they haven’t lost their yellow stripey patterns yet (as they get older, the bands will widen and blend in). We use their unique markings to tell who is who. Here’s our cheat sheet so we can remember which gator is #3 and so on.

Our new method of weighing was successful! (FYI- Gator #3 weighed 2.854 kilograms– a little over six pounds)