It's snake or break time Reptile haven

A boa, python and tarantulas are not average Co Kerry farm animals. But one family has turned their pets into profit, by running a reptile haven in Killorglin - with grant aid, writes Kathryn Holmquist.

Crikey, it's a snyke! Watch while the gryceful Boa inserts her vaynum! Those Boas are dine-gerous! If you're kids are into Crocodile Hunter and anything else to do with those fine-tastic reptiles, no translation is needed. If they're not, they will be soon. Eight-foot snakes, Monitor lizards, bird-eating spiders the size of dinner plates and all manner of slithery, venomous things have captured children's imaginations the way dinosaurs did in the 1990s.

For Clare Newport - who has all these creatures and many more at the Haven World of Reptiles in Killorglin, Co Kerry - the infatuation started in childhood. As a seven-year-old, she whiled away the summers in Finch Hampstead, in England, with an unusual group of friends - multi-coloured sloe worms, grass snakes, toads and frogs - all kept in glass tanks in her back garden.

Since settling in Killorglin four years ago with her two children, Jessica (10) and Joseph (8) and her partner, Ian Newport, Clare has become the Crocodile Hunter of Ireland. Although Clare blanches at the comparison - Steve and Terri Owens are heroes of hers. "What they don't know about snakes, isn't worth knowing," she says.

With the help of the local Credit Union and a Government enterprise scheme, the snake family Newport have parlayed their love of creepy crawlies such as giant hissing cockroaches and pink-towed tarantulas into what is rapidly becoming Killorglin's biggest attraction - other than the Puck Fair in August.

Their enthusiasm for educating young people about the magic of the natural world is as charming as it is infectious. Families visiting the Haven get information-packed personal tours and the chance to hold Kym, the eight-foot python who presides over what has to be one of the most varied and interactive collection of reptiles in the country - even compared with Dublin Zoo. The Haven is currently constructing a website - www.havenworldofreptiles.com - to keep budding herbivarians up to date with developments. Clare has applied for a Government grant to set up a webcam so that after children have visited the Haven, they can see snake eggs hatch and carnivorous spiders feed.

Among the many spiders, there's a Goliath Giant Bird Eater - which is kept well away from the Toucan, named Barry because he's fed on Barry's tea once a week to keep his lime levels up. The snake community boasts two boas, two small bull pythons, and a large Burmese python named Bertha who was rescued from a house fire earlier this summer. Bertha, who suffered burns through three layers of skin, as well as smoke inhalation, is visited daily by a vet and gets long soaks in a bath.

You can hold almost anything you dare at the Haven, except the tarantulas.

Handling spiders gives even Clare the creeps, although she'll spend hours watching one metamorphose. She leaves the spiders care and feeding to "Harry", Paul Harrison, a fellow herbevarian and snake charmer who makes sure that Kym behaves properly when being introduced to the sprogs.

Families will stand for 40 minutes outside Kym's cage, waiting to see her swallow whole a raw chicken from the nearby Londis. (Believe me, I've done it.) Guinea pigs and rabbits are Kym's preferred fare, but these meals are partaken in privacy.

Clare has bred a glow-in-the-dark Pacman frog, among other things. There's a Bull Frog named Fat Freddie which swallows pinkie mice whole and a fascinating display of cannabilistic axylotols, primeval, gilled creatures that stayed in the water when their chance at evolution came and were left behind by the dinosaurs. Clare is in the process of introducing the axylotols to mud, so that they will grow legs and develop lungs. Want to see millions of years of evolution happen before your very eyes? Clare's your woman.

Clare is happy to have children spend hours with her, watching in fascination as the tree spiders spin intricate tunnel webs in which to trap the thawed pinkie mice, which Clare breeds, gasses and then freezes in bags.

If you have an appetite after all that carnivorous behaviour, there are indoor picnic tables and a small tuck shop with a coffee vending machine.

On Saturday afternoons. 2-3 p.m., Clare has an Interactive Happy Hour where children take part in a nature quiz. The first prize is a family ticket worth €30 to Haven World of Reptiles, so if you're in the area, it's worth a shot. (Parents can leave their children for the hour and decamp to Broadberry's, an organic deli on the main street with some of the best food south of Killarney, including a specialist organic beer and wine list). Don't miss the seaweed salsa, which is made by a local Frenchman, but that's another story.)

The Newports' first venture when they arrived in Killorglin was a pet shop, fairly conventional with guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, kittens and other cuddly creatures. In the back room, however, the Newports were breeding cornsnakes for distribution to pet shops all over Ireland, as well as the white mice required to feed the snakes. One day Clare got a brainwave and decided to let her child customers handle the snakes. "The children were gobsmacked and I realised that instead of having all these wonderful creatures hidden away in glass cases, I could create a reptile house," she says.

The Newports are also involved in pet rescue on an almost daily basis. When a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig is found abandoned in a field, Clare is the one the Garda call. She also rescues snakes from travelling circuses and is keen that parents be aware that no one should ever hang a snake around a child's neck, as some circuses do (charging up to €7 for the privilege).

All snakes constrict in reaction to vibration. They cannot hear, but they do sense noise and stamping feet. If circus snakes don't constrict, it means that they are probably drugged. That's cruelty to snakes in Clare's book.

So far, the family has been unable to make a wage from their venture, pumping all admission fees back into the project and surviving on €45 per week from the Back to Work Scheme.

But the children are far happier in Co Kerry than they were in the UK, with the freedom to play in the fields and excellent schools in the town. "What we're doing in Killorglin, could never have happened in England. People there just wouldn't have had the imagination to support us," says Clare.

The Haven World of Reptiles, Langford Street, Killorglin is open 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Monday-Saturday and 1-6 p.m. on Sundays. Individual admission €6.50 (children) and €7.50 (adults); family ticket €30; pre-booked groups €5 per head. Tel: 066-9790844.