CELEBRITY chef Gordon Ramsay has snapped up a farm in Hampshire - and has set his sights on breeding crocodiles there.

The controversial TV cook has bought a five-acre estate near Romsey to keep animals he plans to kill live on air in the next series of his Channel 4 series The F Word.

It was unclear today exactly where the farm was and how much the multi-millionaire paid for it.

He recently caused uproar by slaughtering sheep and chickens on the show.

Mr Ramsay, 40, says crocodiles can be raised in this country and are becoming more common on restaurant menus.

Alongside the reptiles he is proposing to have an Aberdeen Angus cow, sheep, chicken, geese and turkeys.

With a river running through the farm there is plenty of scope for Ramsay to add crocodile to the menu.

He would have to get a permit to farm crocodiles under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act and he would have to prove to Test Valley Borough Council that the crocs would pose no danger.

Millions of TV viewers have seen Ramsay breed chickens at the family's eight-bedroom home in West London. He also bred the sheep on land owned by Victoria and David Beckham.

All were slaughtered and served up to Ramsay's wife Tana and four children on the current series of The F Word, which ends tomorrow.

Ramsay said his family was looking forward to taking in a breath of country air as they set about their new venture.

It will take some time to get the farm up and running. But he says it will have to be ready by the start of filming of the next series of The F Word at the end of the year.

Mr Ramsay has stakes in restaurants in London, New York, Florida, Tokyo and Dubai.