- Hey, good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is absolutely incredible.
Of course I'm here with my guy Tazzy,
the Argentine blue tegu.
And you know that the interesting thing is
a lot of people always ask me,
"A lot of your animals are like dogs and cats,"
and they really are in a weird way.
Although, you never wanna think of a reptile
like a dog and a cat, 'cause they're so different,
they have different requirements,
but when it comes to certain reptiles,
in particular, tegus, believe it or not,
you can keep these guys almost like a dog or a cat.
I've seen many people keep these
just free roaming in their house.
And you think, "Oh, well that's gotta be disgusting,"
or something like that,
but the truth is, is that Tazzy
can actually even be potty trained.
And what I mean by that is oftentimes,
if you get an area in your house
that just has a really good hot lamp,
because again, he needs to have a place
where he can warm up, but there's also a place
that you can actually put some paper,
and he'll almost always go to the bathroom in that one spot.
They are a little bit like leopard geckos
and bearded dragons and other animals like that
that seem to always go to the same area to do their duty,
if you know what I mean.
So the truth is,
is that although I'm not saying or suggesting
that you should keep a tegu just free roaming in your house,
the truth is people do it with a lot of success.
(chuckling) They are amazing animals.
They are very personable.
They love to hang out and just watch TV.
They're just super cool animals.
So the truth is, is that reptiles are a lot different
than a lot of people think, in the sense that
these aren't just kinda emotionless animals.
I mean they literally love it.
I mean, we've seen it with Diddy and Dixie,
where they're literally running up to the front of the cage
just for attention, they just wanna get pet.
Again, look at Tazzy here.
He literally just goes right back home.
That's basically how he would act
if he was free roaming in a house, right?
If he wanted to go and kinda get away,
he would go to that hot spot in his house,
go to the area that he feels comfortable and hang out.
So, again I'm not saying you should keep a reptile
in your house free roaming, but there are some options,
and tegus aren't the only one.
You guys know I love sharing every day of my life
with you guys, just around these animals,
or travel, or whatever the case may be.
It's something that I've done now
for over 1200 (chuckling) days in a row,
which is just absolutely incredible to me,
and every year I've said since the start of this vlog
that on the beginning of January, I'm gonna decide
whether we continue to daily vlog or not.
And literally, although I might give it some thought
throughout the year, I really have always kinda put that as,
after the first of the year, I'm gonna come back, kinda,
take some time to think about it,
and then make that decision.
And I'll be honest with you guys,
I still love daily vlogging.
I still love sharing every day with you guys.
But I do want you guys to be involved in the process.
I'm not gonna lie to you, there has been some thought
about going down to three days a week.
And what I basically mean by that
is we would still film every day,
we would just take the best part of the entire week,
and put it into three real banger videos.
Now, I don't know that I'm ready to do that,
and I want a little bit of your advice down in the comments
of what you guys think.
I just don't want you to get bored with this channel.
The truth is, is that I've seen a lot of YouTube channels
with daily vloggers that at a certain point,
people have just been like,
"All right, I've watched these guys for so long,
"there's so much content,"
and they kinda get bored with it,
and they kinda start to walk away.
I don't want that to happen with this channel,
and I want you guys to be excited about it.
Now again, I personally love daily vlogging.
I'm not sure that I'm ready to throw in the towel yet,
although I'm sure one day that will happen.
But I do wanna know your opinion about the situation.
Are you still excited?
Do you still wanna see that 9:00 a.m. every day upload?
Or are you, would you be okay
with maybe me going to three days a week
and just throw in the best stuff?
And you can make arguments for both sides of that, right?
Part of is, is that, wow,
then you're gonna get even better videos,
but only three times a week,
but there's so much that goes on in the course of a day here
that I feel like I would be missing
if I wasn't uploading every day.
It's so funny, our Mexican black king snake
always seems to like to go on the very rim of its enclosure.
It's been doing this for a few days.
Oh and by the way, someone came in
and they named it Midnight.
I think Midnight's a good name for a Mexican black king.
Now there's certainly challenges
when it comes to daily vlogging.
I mean, as you can imagine, there's no days off,
you're always kinda trying to tell a story,
so there's a lot going on.
It's very time-consuming, I'm not gonna lie to you.
Between filming, conceptual, post-production,
uploading, commenting, all of that other stuff,
it's basically a full-time job,
on top of the three other full-time jobs I have.
But again, it's like I always say to you guys,
I only do things that I love to do.
I obviously love working with animals,
like my girl Bella here,
but I also love filming, and I love YouTube.
And I remember Casey Neistat one time said
that you get addicted to the upload button,
and that is true.
I mean, every day at nine o'clock in the morning,
I'm so excited to hit that upload button
so that I can see what you guys think,
get to share that experience,
and then ultimately interact with you guys.
And I think it would be very difficult
to wake up in the morning and not have that happen.
It'd almost feel like something was missing.
But again, it doesn't mean that it's not challenging.
Because listen, when you can go 1200 days without a day off,
1200 days having to come up with a story to tell,
I mean, it is crazy, it really is.
It's a way of life,
and it's something that I don't think most people
could possibly endure that long of a period of time,
but I absolutely love it.
It's about time to give Salt
a little bit of her little tooth brush
to get this little algae off.
And she really does like it.
It's a little stimulating to her,
and it just kinda cleans her up a little bit.
And again, I think that if I wasn't daily vlogging,
to not be able to share every little part
of my life with you guys would be very challenging.
Now don't get me wrong,
the advantage of going to every three days would be that,
again, I could take out maybe some of the boring stuff,
because no, not every day is exciting,
and sometimes there is days where you're just sitting back,
thinking, "Wow, how can I tell a story
"that people are gonna be excited about?"
Whereas most days, quite frankly, it is pretty crazy.
I mean, with all the animals in the zoo, and all the travel,
and all the stuff we do, there's no doubt
that there's always tremendous amount of content,
but there are days where it's a little bit challenging,
where we sit around and go, "All right, well,
"we've told a pretty good vlog,
"but we still have about four minutes of the vlog to do,"
and we're searching for kinda stories to tell.
Whereas if we did it every three days,
we'd have a lot more content to choose from
and just pick the very best.
But again, every day is so awesome
because it's like I'm sharing every event that happens
as it's actually happening.
(quirky music) (rain pattering)
Remember that big rain storm
I was thinking was coming yesterday?
Well yeah, it's here today.
And of course the significance of that rain storm
is a low-pressure front, which causes an increased breeding
when it comes to reptiles.
So let's see if we have any additional breeding today
compared to yesterday,
'cause yesterday was a little bit of a disappointment.
I'm gonna start, check right here.
Oh, right off the brip, we've got an albino clown
that's bred to a pastel hetfer clown, hooked up.
So first snake, first breeding, that's not bad at all.
But that doesn't mean that everything's gonna be breeding.
This clown het goes to a double het ghost clown is courting.
He's got his tail wrapped, but it's not an actual lock.
So right off the rip,
I think it's gonna be a pretty good day, breeding-wise.
Albino, nothing here.
This guy's out.
Let's see if we got pastel orange dream, any breeding here?
Nope, okay well, we started pretty good.
Let's hope it doesn't tail off now, that's for sure.
Let's just keeping checking to see.
Yep, another lock.
That's a pastel crystal bred to a pinstripe special.
Oh my God, so we're doing pretty good.
We already have two locks with one almost lock,
and we're only a handful of snakes in.
Again that barometric pressure changes,
and it just really sparks off these males to start breeding.
But again, we're still pretty early in this.
Another courting, not a breeding there.
So again, it just kinda is gonna go throughout the day.
You gotta remember, some of these males
will actually have already been hooked up and let go, right?
Sometimes when ball pythons are breeding,
it could be maybe an hour of breeding,
or it could be three days of breeding.
So, I could also have missed some stuff
because this rain storm hit really last night.
Nothing breeding here.
And again, I'm just gonna go through everything,
kinda give you guys the highlight.
I won't bore you going through things here.
But that's one of the things that I really love
about daily vlogging,
again, a nice courtship,
tails wrapped, not quite hooked up yet,
is that I can share all of this stuff with you guys
on a daily basis.
So I really would miss it if I stopped doing it every day.
And I hope that you guys would enjoy it,
'cause this is a perfect example.
Yesterday we thought there was gonna be low pressure,
lots of breeding, didn't happen.
Today, lots of breeding.
And if I wasn't daily vlogging,
we would've missed this part of the process, right?
(quirky music)
A lot of people have been asking
how the training's going with RJ.
Definitely still a little feisty, as you can see right here.
(chuckling) He's not exactly his old self yet,
but he's giving up a lot quicker, right?
So before, he would've stood his ground
and continued to try to snap at me.
Now he's kinda submitting and going away.
So, although he's still a little cantankerous,
we're working with him.
And again, once I get him out, he's a puppy dog.
But you can see my little buddy here.
(RJ hissing)
What are you doing bud, what are you doing?
What are you doing?
(chuckling) That's okay, RJ.
But trust me, we'll get him.
I'm not worried about it at all.
(chuckling) Look at the little monkey.
(RJ hissing) He is so funny.
Pretty cool that we're starting to see
the ontogenetic color changes of these rhino rat snakes.
And this one is a feisty little monkey over here.
Now they're born gray,
and they actually turn green as they get bigger.
This one is really just starting to turn green,
and this one is almost all the way green right there.
Whoa, I tell you what,
these guys are absolute monsters right now.
They're nothing like Pinocchio next door, that's for sure.
But it's pretty cool.
Whatever reason, while they're gray as babies,
they do a little bit better in the wild,
and then as they get older,
they of course start going up into the canopy
where they need to be green.
But these little feisty monkeys are absolutely incredible,
but they sure are gorgeous.
Helen is absolutely just coming out of shed,
but has a bunch of stuck shed.
Now whereas big snake oftentimes don't shed in one piece,
although every now and then they will,
just like Cupcake did the other day,
a lot of times small snakes should shed in one piece.
But as you can see in her cage, she kinda blew out the cage.
A lot of shed over here.
And that tells me that the humidity is too low.
Something that up north, or in cold climates,
we have an issue with
because of course it's cold outside,
although not that cold right now.
The fact is, is the furnace runs a lot more,
and even with a humidifier, the air dries out a lot more.
Something that you have to combat during the winter.
So what we're gonna need to do
is maybe put a little bit more bedding in there,
the Reptile Prime coconut bedding,
moisten it up a little bit, and then worst case scenario,
because she has a screen top,
if she continues to have shedding issues,
we'll have to cover some of that screened top
with just a damp towel.
That traps the air in there just a little bit,
keeps the humidity up,
especially if we're spraying down the Reptile Prime
to keep it moist, not wet, but moist.
Just get that humidity up
because again, during the winter months,
oftentimes the humidity drops
by 10 or 15% in most buildings,
again, even if you have a humidifier.
As for now, we're just gonna go ahead and soak Helen.
We'll let her soak for maybe a half hour,
45 minutes in warm water,
and we should be able to get her out of shed.
This is of course a Mexican black king
that's about to go into brumation.
Just kept it up a little bit later.
This whole section here is stuff
that we just wanted to give a little bit more food to.
You can see now it's looking absolutely incredible,
and it's ready for brumation.
And that's the thing, we have to make those judgment calls
when we're going, "You know what,
"this one isn't quite ready for brumation."
You don't wanna put things down
when they're a little bit too thin.
This albino nelson's another one like that.
But you know, I get to share every day with you guys,
from the brumation part, to bringing 'em up,
to the first breedings, to sheds, to finally copulation,
and then egg production, which is pretty cool.
Now again, don't get me wrong.
If I drop down to three days a week,
you guys would still see all that type of stuff.
This is actually a Miami corn snake right here,
which is just really gorgeous.
And, again, you would see it in that three-day window
'cause we'd take the best of the week and put it into there,
but to me there's also kinda that part where,
when a baby snake hatches,
you guys aren't gonna see it necessarily right away.
It might be a day or two later.
Again, there's really advantages both ways,
I'll be honest with you.
But I guess I'm gonna be completely transparent
with you guys and open up
in the fact that my biggest concern about the vlog
is to kinda become irrelevant, right?
Where people just kind of forget about me,
they don't want it, they get sick of us,
they don't wanna see it anymore.
And I don't want that to happen.
So if I have to make a change that makes it better
by dropping down the amount of days, I will.
If it's a personal choice,
'cause I know a lot of you guys down in the comments
are gonna say, "Brian, it's up to you, it's not our choice."
But the truth is, is that it is kinda up to you, right?
Because the amount of viewership I get really does dictate.
This is an anaconda hognose snake,
and it's absolutely a ripper.
But if it's up to me, I would probably stay daily vlogging,
'cause I love it.
I love the grind, I love doing it,
I love every day of uploading and sharing with you guys.
But again, if it becomes to the point
where we're overwhelming with 1200-plus videos
within three years, I don't know, when is the time to stop?
When is the time to reduce?
When is the time to change, evolve?
I don't know the answer,
and that's why I'm just kinda figuring I'd talk to you guys
at the beginning of the year,
as the new beginning of the year
to try to decide what to do.
Just wanna give you a little update on Ben and Jerry,
just so you guys know what's going on.
They were doing great, then they had a regurg issue,
now they're doing great again, doing really good.
Again, what we've done
is kinda reduced the handling with these guys.
We still take 'em out, and we still handle 'em a little bit,
but we don't go crazy like we were for a while there,
and now they are back on food,
just doing absolutely incredible.
I'm so blessed to have these guys,
but there is some amount of nervousness
that goes into keeping an animal like this two-headed snake.
I don't want anything to ever happen
to these two little monkeys.
But, as for now, doing amazing.
Absolutely loving this false water cobra right here.
I've always wanted one of these guys,
and I'm super excited to finally have one.
And of course Eric has a big female.
This turned out to be a male.
So it's probably gonna be another year or so
before he's big enough to breed.
But to produce false water cobras
will be absolutely incredible.
Again, a mildly venomous snake.
It just basically means that they're rear fanged.
They don't have a delivery system of a pressurized venom
that they pump into a front-fanged elapid or pit viper.
And basically what happens is they have to bite you
and chew you, and actually the venom almost seeps into you
through their back kinda channeled fangs.
Again, even when you do get envenomated,
it's a relatively mild thing.
So, normally these guys are very docile,
so you don't have to worry about getting bitten at all.
Absolutely incredible, beautiful animals.
Now they're gonna lose a lot of this pattern
as they get older,
but they're absolutely adorable as babies.
Honestly, when I think of my daily vlog,
I think the year 2020 is gonna be the most exciting year
that I've ever vlogged, to be totally honest with ya.
Obviously we have The Reptarium expansion going on,
we have the relaunch of AnimalBytesTV, hopefully,
we've got tons of travel and adventure
and collabs coming up,
and of course we have the podcast, "Checking In."
By the way, I'll put a link in the description,
as well as pin a comment.
Please go over there and sub it.
It's gonna be a hopefully weekly,
maybe even more often than weekly, podcast
with myself, my family, a lot of cool guests.
My point is, is that there's a tremendous amount
of interesting things happening in 2020.
Again, in my opinion, probably the most exciting year
of my life maybe, potentially,
and I'd like to share that every single day with you guys.
It makes a lot of sense that I would continue to daily vlog,
but again, I do see the other side,
where it may be a smart decision to go down.
I'm not 100% sure,
but as for now, I will tell you guys this,
that nothing is gonna change.
We're gonna continue to daily vlog for now,
until we kinda ultimately make that decision.
I wanted to bring it to you guys.
You guys are involved in this decision-making as well.
But we will stay daily vlogging for now,
and who knows, maybe we'll daily vlog through 2020,
and I'll be talking to you about this next year,
January 2nd, about whether we go down to three days in 2021.
I'm not 100% sure,
but for now, at least the immediate future,
we will continue to daily vlog.
Like I mentioned, as for now,
everything is gonna stay the same,
but I do wanna hear your opinions down in the comments.
If you liked this video, can you do me a favor
and watch last year's January 2nd video right up here.
You can roll through the 2019 playlist right over here.
On this side, you can hit that subscribe button
and turn the post notifications on, if you don't mind.
Have a wonderful day.
Remember to be kind to someone,
and I promise, I'll see you guys tomorrow.