- It's seven in the morning
and I'm gonna be here till 10 o'clock tonight.
So it's gonna be a busy day.
So let's get started.
First up we have to go through
and check and feed all of these ball pythons.
And feeding these animals never stops.
You guys know that we're really deep
into the breeding season now.
We're kind of coming up to the end of the breeding season
to be honest with you.
So getting food into females that are growing
follicles is super important.
So every single week we have to make sure
that as much food gets into these females
so that they can get to follicular growth
and potentially ovulate and hopefully have a clutch of eggs.
First thing taken care of,
onto the next.
It's 10 o'clock,
only 12 hours to go.
Our first of three birthday parties has just arrived.
Birthday parties are actually the backbone
of the educational department of The Reptarium.
And they're so important to us.
We do a ton of birthday parties
and we have three of them today.
And trust me we absolutely love each
and every one of them.
Been a minute since we actually showed you
our Fly River turtles.
I mean look at how amazing look.
Hey buddy what are you doing?
They are just so absolutely cute.
Again I keep saying I can't wait
'til we get this expansion done
so they could be in a giant enclosure.
I mean they're gonna be in probably a thousand plus
gallon enclosure just swimming around.
Look at how cool it is.
It's like a little sea turtle in freshwater.
Absolutely amazing.
It's been a dream animal my entire life.
They have,
I'm so lucky to actually be working with them
and they're doing amazing.
So now we have our first tour in the house.
How are you guys doing?
- Good.
- [Brian] Where are you guys from again?
- Yale.
- Yale, Michigan, which isn't too far,
about an hour or so away.
Second time you guys have been here.
- Yes.
- Awesome, they're gonna have a great time.
We love doing private tours
because it's a little bit more intimate way
to see the reptile zoo where basically
we have the entire zoo to yourself
and we can go from enclosure to enclosure
pulling out amazing animals
without the interruptions of being open to the public.
Don't get me wrong.
Open to the public is absolutely awesome.
But the private tours definitely are nice.
Well it's about that time guys.
We're gonna be able to put fish
in the new tank here pretty soon.
Everything has been cycled for about six weeks now.
So here maybe next week I'm gonna get my first fish.
Don't know what I'm gonna do yet,
but it's pretty exciting.
First birthday party down, first tour down,
now let's get back down to do some snake work.
It's gonna be some ultrasounding.
It's very important for me to ultrasound these females
as we get to developing, right?
Not only does it show me which males I need to put in
with which females at what time,
but it tells me when I can stop feeding
because once females hit about 22 millimeters follicles
and refuse meals,
I don't wanna continue to stress them
by offering more and more meals
because they typically go off of food at that time.
Again they'll start to really grow
from 22 to 35 millimeters and then an ovulation soon after.
So my job today is to ultrasound as many females
as I can before my next event.
Take a look at this guys.
This is actually a Mahogany female
and this is an ovulation.
You could just see, look at how big that looks.
And it looks like she ate a jumbo rat
or something like that,
but that's an actual ovulation.
So as I'm going through and actually doing
all of these checks on follicle growth,
we're coming across more and more ovulations.
I tell you what it definitely is expanding here.
We had a lot of females that were 13, 14 millimeters,
now are like 30 millimeters.
Things are looking great.
One of the other things I have to do today
is go through and check all the animals
that aren't ball pythons that are breeding.
Like this spotted is in children's pythons.
So we're starting to look like we're getting close
to some ovations with these guys.
Again, we're not just breeding ball pythons.
We've got tons of other pythons
and boas and different things like that.
So I've gotta go through all these animals
and just kind of get a little bit of a status update.
After years of ultrasounding snakes,
I've gotten pretty efficient.
I can literally ultrasound a snake in less than one minute.
Here's another ovulation.
This is actually a Ghi Mojave.
Look at the swelling in here
and they actually call it a glow, right?
So this animal goes from like a darker brown color
to this glowing color when it's ovulating.
Wow I'm excited about this clutch.
It's been several years since I actually produced
a boa litter just because I haven't really breed them.
Well Jessica's been working hard on this particular animal.
This is actually a hypo het for albino.
It's bred to a motley het albino and she is swollen up.
This is the back of the enclosure right here
that is actually hot.
When they start hugging the heat,
just like she is there,
it's pretty amazing.
So it looks like we're gonna have at least one litter
of boa finally this year.
You could certainly breed snakes without an ultrasound.
It really helps me decide which males to put in
with which females at what time
and when we can actually stop breeding females.
So ultrasounding isn't a necessity,
but certainly a helpful tool.
So ultrasounding is done for the day,
just in time for the next birthday party to start.
Oh look who decided to show up.
- Excuse me?
- [Brian] I remember when I had a part-time job.
- Are you kidding me right now?
- [Brian] Must be nice.
We've been here for like five hours working our butts off.
- Oh my how does it feel?
Welcome to my every day.
- [Brian] I mean, are you planning on working
more than 20 minutes today?
Or are you-
- No actually now that you say that,
I think I'm gonna go.
- [Brian] Just gonna go?
- Yeah.
- [Brian] Yeah not before you get your work done.
I'm going, I'm taking a break.
- Yeah your whole life is a break.
Who do you think you are?
Get the heck outta here seriously.
- [Brian] What are you talking about?
Get to work.
- Yeah right.
- [Brian] Sick of this slacking.
Get to work.
- Nice try.
- One more time and she's outta here.
- Wait can I do my one more time?
- And the second birthday party is in the house.
It's so cool to see the kids get so excited.
I mean this group was absolutely adorable.
They loved all the animals.
And again we definitely love when kids come in
and have a great time for their birthday
because hey, listen, this is how it all starts
with the youth starting to love these animals.
And then of course there's the Colombian rainbow boas here.
These are actually two females in here
that we're breeding to a pretty special male.
This is the first time.
And I gotta go look for him.
Here he is.
Look, oh,
he got a little feisty on me there.
This way.
What are you trying to bite me for you silly monkey?
Ow no, this one bit me.
I'm getting bit all over the place.
What in the world are these thing's problem?
So this is a T-positive albino and wow.
These guys are absolutely fired up today.
Hey, calm down.
Calm down guys.
Hopefully with any luck we're gonna get T-negative
and T-positive albino rainbows.
We have a couple more hours until we open at The Reptarium.
How you doing today man?
- I'm good, what's going on?
- [Brian] Guess what?
I have a super busy day.
I've been crushed with events, birthday parties,
we got company in,
we got all kinds of stuff.
I'm gonna put you in charge today.
You make sure everyone does everything
that you're supposed to do all right?
- Oh that's easy.
All right Beth, apparently we're the boss today.
- Oh, it's about time.
- Taking over The Reptarium.
- All right we're gonna change everything.
- Missy, Mike, Beth coming at you.
Maria, you're just standing around.
- Standing around?
What have you cleaned?
- [Mike] I did all the poop.
You did not do all the poop.
- I always do all the poop.
- You wanna see that bucket?
That was all from Diddy and Dixie's enclosure.
- They poop a lot.
Get back to work.
The glass is dirty.
Come on, let's go.
- The Madagascan tree boas are doing really amazing.
And I'll tell you what,
I've been kind of keeping an eye on Mike a little bit.
He's doing a horrible job right off the bat.
I told him to be in charge
and here he went and got him and Beth in charge.
He was afraid to tell Beth that he was in charge.
So I'm gonna go yell at him a little bit
and get him on track.
See if he can actually do a little better job at it.
- Okay, Lori.
What are you doing right now?
- What am I doing right now?
- [Mike] Yeah.
- I'm working.
- [Mike] You're doing great.
- Thanks.
- [Mike] That's all I got.
All right, so just like everybody,
we're always working and Brian's just standing here.
- I told you you were in charge to go work.
I'm busy.
I've got things to do.
- [Mike] No you're just standing here petting Bill.
- I know that's part of my job description today.
So what's your job description?
- [Mike] Whatever she tells me to do.
- [Brian] Wait a second.
It was supposed to be whatever I told you to do.
You're supposed to listen to me
and then you're supposed to tell her what to do.
- [Mike] No.
- No it's not gonna work out that way?
- [Mike] No.
- All right you're done.
Give me your keys you're outta here.
- [Mike] Hey Bruce.
- Hey what's up man?
- [Mike] So Brian put me in charge today.
I don't think I'm doing a very good job.
You wanna be in charge for the day?
- Oh, absolutely man.
- [Mike] Right now?
- [Bruce] Let's go, let's go.
Come on.
Let's go time, time now, time now.
- [Mike] Here we go, here we go.
- [Bruce] You got ten minutes boy,
let's go.
- This is Jeff.
And this is Jeff.
And ironically enough Jeff is a guy
that is into Burmese pythons
His tag is burmdonor
and he's on the podcast tonight with me.
So he showed up and we're having a great time.
Gotta show him my burms because he's into Burmese pythons.
- What are you doing?
- [Mike] I'm cleaning the glass.
- That's not how you clean glass.
What are you doing?
Gimme that, get down, do some pushups guy.
Get down to do some pushups guy.
Let's go.
- This isn't even fair.
Why is this even legal?
- You know, when you wanted done something done right,
you gotta do it yourself.
And I lead from the front.
- I hate this.
God I've got arm pain.
- And we have our last birthday party
and last event of the day and guys
I know it seems like a crazy day,
but guys this is often times the way our day is.
And it is a dream come true.
When I started The Reptarium,
I hoped for this kind of business.
And I'm so thankful for it.
And if it wasn't for the great crew that we have
we wouldn't certainly be able to get this place
not only ready,
looking good every single day,
but also informing and educating people as they come in.
It is truly amazing.
It may be busy, but it's so worth it.
- [Mike] I'm done.
- [Bruce] Locked?
- [Mike] Secured, basically.
- Are you serious?
The heck is this?
There's dirt in the tracks man.
Like what kind of place he thinks we're running around here?
You're trying to keep that stuff spotless.
Now that you effed that up,
you get to do squats while I finish it up.
Parallel, come on all the way.
Legs out.
Your jeans are ripped.
- Aw man, my undies.
- What are you doing?
- I'm not doing nothing.
Hang on a second.
- [Bruce] Get up higher, man.
I said parallel to the ground,
not 45 degrees.
Some time today.
Simplest darned task.
Every little spot you point out,
I'm gonna make sure I get real thorough
with that one little spot.
- My legs are already hurting.
- Last moments before we open up,
got a little bit of animals to feed over here.
And then we are open to the public.
It's almost four o'clock.
- You've been insubordinate all day.
I haven't had it,
I'm tired of it, about had it up to here with you.
You're brushing with this
and I better see every little crack and crevice clean.
- I got a crevice you can clean with this toothbrush.
I liked it a lot better when I was in charge.
This guy sucks.
- And here we go, they're coming in.
And I tell you what, it's just something magical.
This place takes on a completely different feel
when we're open to the public.
Tours, birthday parties,
events are absolutely amazing.
But when we're open to the public
and the place fills up with families and kids
and everything else it becomes magical.
And I love this time of the week better
than any other time.
There's a hole in it.
And hole is from a musket ball from the Civil War.
- [Jeff] Every time.
- And it's like, it's not, you know-
- [Jeff] I heard that, but not enough
to where I would've been like,
like I did hear that story.
And I probably at that time thought it was real.
- I'm sure you did.
- [Narrator] But I thought it was real
the first time I heard it too.
- Yeah. Nope.
You'll hear anybody that has a big
giant snapping turtle has that same story.
- [Narrator] As I started going to more zoos with Brian,
I started hearing that story rack up more and more.
I'm like, hold on.
- And interestingly enough,
Bowser as he's gotten bigger has developed a little hole
in his shell.
- [Jeff] I think it's natural right?
- [Mike] All the way up in Bowser's spot.
- We're in the last hour of this very long day.
It's definitely been an amazing day,
so much going on but so much fun.
We got Daisy out just to have a little fun to end the night.
What the heck are you doing dude?
- [Mike] Bruce told me to get every crack and crevice.
- Why did Bruce tell you,
you're in charge man.
- 'Cause I was sick of being in charge.
I wasn't doing a very good job.
- Stop touching my shoes.
- I'm cleaning them.
He told me every crack and crevice.
- I tried, man.
I tried to give the guy a promotion
and this is what happened.
And that's the end.
Hope you guys enjoyed today's video.
If you did, there's a playlist
that you can watch all kinds of videos.
You can also hit that subscription button.
It would mean a lot to me.
Also hit that like button while you're down there,
have a wonderful day reptile army.
Remember be kind to someone and I promise
I'll see you in the next one.
That shoe thing was actually pretty cool.
Go ahead and do that other one.