Luan Nam, 72, was trying to move a crocodile out of a cage where it had laid eggs when it grabbed the stick he was using as a goad and pulled him in.

The main group of reptiles then set about him, tearing his body to pieces and leaving the concrete enclosure at the farm in Siem Reap awash with blood.

"While he was chasing a crocodile out of an egg-laying cage, the crocodile attacked the stick, causing him to fall into the enclosure," Mey Savry, police chief of Siem Reap commune.

"Then other crocodiles pounced, attacking him until he was dead," he said, adding that the remains of Luan Nam's body were covered with bite marks.

One of the man's arms was bitten off and swallowed by the crocodiles, he said.

Luan Nam was the president of the local crocodile farmers' association but his family may now sell his stock, after urging him for years to stop raising the reptiles, commune chief May Sameth said.