For nearly 25 years, Gary Friedel, a former Green Beret and Vietnam veteran, has owned and operated the Topsey Exotic Ranch and Drive Thru Safari.
Situated on more than 350 acres of prairie land along FM 580, the ranch, as Friedel refers to it, is marked only by a weather-beaten sign on a fence along the roadside.
So, it is easy to miss if you’re not looking in the right place.
Of course, the sight of a spitting baby camel, or a mother emu with her babies in tow might turn your head, make you turn back around and take that two-lane gravel road to see what Friedel has created.
The disabled veteran began his quest to create an exotic park in Topsey in 1984 after many years of working with animals on his own.
Four years later, Friedel opened the park to the public, which has become something of a magnet to school children and their parents over the years.
At the end of that gravel road, the gravel parking lot was virtually empty at noon on a recent day.
Friedel was inside the gift shop as his animal handler, Gary, and Misty, the cashier, took a break before the afternoon influx of small children and parents began.
There are more than 50 different species of animals inside the small park, and some of them came to the ranch by way of other safari parks or zoos, Friedel said.
However, most of the animals were born right there at the ranch.
“Over the last 20 years, about 90 percent of my stock is self-produced,” he said.
His zebra is the product of three generations of breeding at the ranch.
Despite that length of time, it isn’t always easy to get the inhabitants of Topsey ranch to come see the humans in cars.
Friedel said it can take as long as five generations of breeding in captivity before the animals will come to a waiting car, and that is a good thing.
Some of the species inside the fenced world of the ranch will readily approach the slow-moving vehicles for a little snack.
As many as 150 cars can come through the park in a single day, but on slow days, Friedel said he may not see more than five or six.
All of them stop at the gift shop and will often purchase a small sack of animal feed that keeps those roaming critters happy and wanting more.
The park was empty of humans when Friedel limped out to his pickup and started the engine.
The sound carried over the din of animal noises, alerting them to his arrival.
Several llamas looked up over the horns of a pair of Siberian big horned sheep that grazed nearby.
As Friedel maneuvered his pickup onto the road, the llamas scampered across the prairie and the sheep eagerly approached his slow-moving pickup.
Further down the winding white dirt road, a mother emu with eight of her brood trotted to the side of his pickup for a morsel of feed while a cluster of axis deer, which are native to India, rested under a copse of trees.
Friedel is proud of the animals he has on the ranch.
Two of his most prized animals are a pair of Bengal tigers that sit far away in a cage behind an electric fence.
Friedel gets out of his truck and talks to the big cats as if they are his friends.
“Tigger, come on out,” he yells to the cats.
One of his projects is getting a pair of Pere David deer, which are native to China, to breed for the first time.
The two lay side-by-side next to a muddy pond as a small herd of black buck antelopes, native to Pakistan, grazed nearby.
The trip through his ranch takes about 45 minutes.
Friedel pulls his pickup under a nearby shade tree and makes his way to the petting zoo.
Like those of his flock that roam free within the fence, most of those smaller animals seem to know exactly when Friedel is nearby.
A dancing cockatoo that constantly repeats its name - “Knock-Knock” - is flanked by a cage with three iguanas and a fanged Capuchin monkey no one is supposed to feed.
Friedel stops for a moment in front of Knock-Knock’s cage and flaps his arms like a bird.
“He’ll dance for you,” he said.
As if on cue, Knock-Knock immediately begins dancing and repeating his name over and over and over again.
Of course, some of the stock is still trying to find their way in the animal world of the Topsey ranch.
John, an 8-month-old camel, hasn’t yet found its way around the pen he occasionally shares with a bull.
Despite this lack of familiarity, Isabelle Ortiz, 5, was still intrigued.
She looked timidly at John through the wire fence as the baby camel stuck his slender neck through the cattle guard panel to say a quick hello to the bull.
Young Isabelle loses interest about the same time as John, who runs along the fence line and disappears into his pen.
“I think I want to go and see the goats,” she says as her grandparents hover nearby.
Topsey Exotic Ranch and Drive Thru Safari is open seven days a week.
To learn more, contact the ranch at 547-3700.
