Tiger! Tiger!

We stayed at the Carriage House at Inn St Gemme Beauvais in Ste Genevieve!  The inn is the oldest continually operated bed and breakfast in Missouri, every room has a different theme, it's like stepping back in time.  Our room had a four poster bed, fireplace, double jacuzzi tub, even a tiny kitchen.  Breakfast was wonderful.

Hubby had told me we would be doing something with involving animals on Saturday.  It's ironic I left cat pictures up here for Saturday, because we went out to Crown Ridge to meet the five tigers that live there!

The four males and one female are siblings, rescued as cubs and raised by Keith Kinkade and Judy McGee.  They had to be fed puppy formula as they were only eight pounds when they first arrived.  They live in a big habitat with trees, platforms, pools, and toys.  One of their toys is a 50 gallon plastic drum, suspended on a cable.  The drum swings and the cats play with it, it is covered in gouge marks.

This is TJ, the white tiger.  He has blue eyes, he's big, and he likes his pool.  We saw TJ rear up to grab a piece of chicken, stretching at least eight feet off the ground, and he landed silently.  But the cats aren't silent, they made a noise called chuffing, which is a "happy noise" when they first saw their caretakers.  The female is the most talkative, she sounded like Tangle when you bath him but less stressed.  It was strange to see such huge animals rubbing along the fence to get petted and obviously happy to see Keith and Judy.  We also heard them roar.

The tigers were eating chicken when we visited, raw chunks of human-consumption-grade meat,  bones and all.  This one reared up to collect a piece.  They eat five to six pounds of meat a day, plus some grass.  We got to feed the tigers, dropping chicken down a tube.  The tigers would lick the chicken from the tube and crunch it down, or let it slide into their mouths.  They are fed in separate pens so they can't see each other eating.

The female tiger, Dee, is smaller than the males.  Vincent is the largest tiger and he weighs about 750 pounds.  One of their toys is a blue beach ball, you could see them stalking Judy when she was holding the ball.  The tigers dropped to the ground and slid forward slowly, eyes on the toy.  There are a couple of outdoor cats that hang out near the tiger habitat and the tigers will stalk them and jump against the fence to startle them.  It's a big fence, with an inside and outside ring to make sure no-one can stick their hand in the tiger area.  Judy and Keith let the tigers lick the chicken juice off their hands after feeding but I'd rather not get that close.

After the tiger tour we went back to the inn to change, and returned for an amazing dinner at the Crown Ridge restaurant.  Thank you for a wonderful weekend Hubby!