Two Vets Turn Their Dream Into a Zoo

Veterinarians Jay and Valerie Holt weren't sure what to do when the recession made it difficult to pay the bills for their menagerie of wild animals in Nevada. According to the Los Angeles Times, the monthly grocery bill just to feed all of their exotic pets came to around $10,000.

Eventually they decided the only way to turn the tide on their financial woes was to open their three acres to visitors. And so the Roos-N-More Zoo in Moapa, Nev. was born.

Three years ago, when the Holts decided to leave the outskirts of Nevada for suburban Moapa, they were the proud parents of 16 kangaroos, wallabies and wallaroos, the Lost Angeles Times reports. After their move, they acquired two camels and a zebra, plus lemurs, porcupines, pigs, goats, raccoons, parrots, monkeys and sheep.

And in the middle of it all sits the couple's four-bedroom home.

"If I started from scratch and built a zoo, I probably wouldn't have put my house in the middle," Valerie told the Los Angeles Times.

Valerie and Jay, 44, attended Louisiana State Veterinary School together, and have always shared a love of exotic animals. Jay had dreams of being surgeon and Valerie wanted to work in a zoo. Now they find themselves running a zoo, a successful veterinary practice, and raising two kids. Jay built most of the zoo's enclosures himself, and the couple turned an old storage shed into a kitchen to make meals for their more than 160 animals.

The educational zoo is the proud host to school groups, tourists and scouting events.

"We are still a work in progress," Valerie writes on the Roos-N-More Web site. "But I am so proud of what we have accomplished. I have fulfilled my dream. I was unable to bring the veterinarian to the zoo, so I brought the zoo to the veterinarian."