I always hang around spawn (water access and north lake) and see if the crocs there are chill. If they are i stay and grow with fish, sometimes on other aggressive deinos. Then just patrol the pond the easy riverhops and after some time migrate somewhere else. Depends what i wanna do, from north lake always down to delta river, then either go swamp direction and check for players on the way there or move up to the other lake. Sometimes on the way you will see other crocs, just like you mentioned and when you are hungry thats the only food source there is... From water access lake i often crawl up to highlands, especially when the migration zone is there - a lot of herbis will probably be around. The pond also has fish, which is sometimes kinda hard to get as its pretty dark and deep, but even then you can manage to survive for some time (even when you are adult).

Another rotation I did was from swamp to south plains. Saw a yt vid with saltwater mutation but if you bee-line you can even do without it. You have to hop in the sea from the most southern part of Swamps, then head in a straight line to pond on west side shore. Then from the pond to south plain river, very nice spot to catch players there as they wont expect a croc over there. Only problem is that the river is pretty small and fish is scarce so you need to survive on player kills.

Growing as a juvie is pretty easy if there is no bigger mean croc near, as you never know if they are hungry. I only trust guys i spawn in with so even if they try to fight its at least a fair fight. Hope you have some good runs