Oklahoma Nauga Rancher

Backwards Boy, and others familiar with the Nauga:

Back in 1946 or 1947, my grandfather tried keeping some of the tamer strain of Naugas on his ranch in Oklahoma. They had to be fenced off from the cattle; the fence had to be one strand of bob war higher, but they didn't eat much, being lean.

They did like snakes, even poisonous ones. They'd sit on them, squish them, before devouring them whole.

The semi-domesticated weren't all puffed out and smooth, they were wrinkled and folded like a Shar-Pei, bred for extra hide.

But, it turned out, the Oklahoma summer heat made the hide stiff and unworkable, where exposed, and the humidity caused mouldering under the folds.

More importantly, the Nauga's digestive systems had some trouble digesting the native grasses, and several of my grandfather's hands threatened to quit because of it.

So Grandpa sold off the Nauga herd at a loss, and didn't profit like others, later, when Monsanto bought them all up.

I read on the interwebz that at the Monsanto Nauga ranch in Brazil, native-environmental groups are protesting that escaped Naugas are disrupting the Amazonian ecosystems.

I don't care; it just warms my heart to think of those little wild Naugas, running free, establishing new colonies along that mighty river, squishing and devouring snakes.