- This is a lizard that actually carries venom.
And in the past I've actually been envenomated
by it and he's getting pretty big.
So I'm gonna do the best I can do to get him out.
I gotta be honest with you, this is a black throat monitor
and it's a feisty little monkey and I do not want to get bit
especially, now he's getting a little bit bigger.
Come on, buddy.
Come on, come on, come on.
I'm going get him down in ground as quickly as I can
before he bites me.
And he's actually starting to mellow out a little bit.
Look at this, guys.
He's getting huge.
Remember when I got bit, he was like this big.
Now the fact this is that monitor lizard
actually all have some form of venom in it,
but certain people, myself included react differently
to different species of monitors.
For instance, this black throat monitor,
I have a pretty nasty reaction where my throat closes up.
I feel really sick, almost like flu-like.
And it's not a very good situation
but I've talked about before how black throat monitors
chill out as they get bigger and are ready.
He's like three times the size of a baby
and you can already see he's a little agitated
but he's not trying to bite me like he used to.
Before when we took him out, he was up, there he goes.
Uh-oh.
I spoke too soon.
So the fact is that he used to try to light me up,
every single time I handled,
I used to have to take out gloves and stuff like that.
Now he starting to chill out a little bit more.
This is a great sight.
Ooh, look at that little monkey right there.
And I'm telling you what, when he gets a hold of you
at least me, I have a terrible reaction.
So I wanna always make sure
that I don't get bit by something like that.
'Cause I don't wanna feel bad
for six or eight hours like I did last time.
And that was when he was only this big.
Now that he's a lot bigger
who knows what could potentially happen.
But nevertheless, he is chilling out
and looking absolutely amazing.
Well, every time I say he's chilling out,
he opens his mouth up like he wants to fight me, right?
But the fact is that he started
to become a little bit more docile
and he started to becoming a little bit more handleable,
but isn't it weird that some lizards actually carry a venom?
How crazy is that?
And like I said, trust me.
I don't wanna get bit by him again
but you can start to see, it's okay, buddy.
It's gonna be okay, bud.
But he is an absolute cutie.
I love it.
Now you know that when this ohh, he almost got me there.
Wooh.
Gotta be careful.
Okay, it's okay, buddy.
So I know when he gets bigger,
he is gonna be a beautifully tamed animal.
And I tell you what, the best way to handle
an animal like this is to never restrain them
'cause once you restrain them
that's when they're gonna wanna bite the worst.
So see, I'm just like kind of almost making my hand
a platform for him.
That's the way you handle lizard
where he doesn't get too upset.
Even though he's a little bit feisty right now.
I think he's pretty cool.
And by the way guys, I don't know about you,
but I would think that handling this guy
definitely makes me a reptile army member, right?
If you wanna become part of reptile army,
you can go down in the description
and click on reptilearmy.com.
Get yourself some merch, become part of the army
and be a little soldier for us out there.
Spreading the love of these beautiful creatures.
Just like this guy here, flap check.
This is a little monkey right here.
We've got all kinds of merch available.
So go to reptilearmy.com and join in the movement.
(loud whooshing)
RJ, what are you doing, buddy?
I see something that's pretty cool right over here
and I'm just gonna grab this right here
and show you what I mean.
Look at this.
This is so awesome.
Ohh, wooh.
Look at that.
Now I always talk about the fact that alligators
will lose teeth up to 2000 in their lifetime,
but this is a little tooth that RJ actually shed.
You could see it's a little hollow.
They just drop out and then a new one grows in.
Basically, it's kind of like us with kids' teeth, right?
But they do it all the time, right?
Throughout their whole life.
So that is an absolutely amazing tooth off.
Do I see a reptileteeth.com coming in your future?
Yeah, I think so.
Hey RJ, you want a rat?
Come on bud.
Whoa.
There you go, buddy.
Wooh, gotta watch that hand.
- This magic moment.
- You know the last couple of times
I've went through ball pythons, I've basically said,
"oh, it's a mundane thing
and I've done it a timeless through."
And then a bunch of you guys have comment like,
"it's not maintained, we wanna know what you're doing."
Really, this is kind of the time that you were,
it's when the art and the science really mixed
into one, right?
And basically what I mean by that
is that the science is follicular growth.
The science is how much they eat, all this kind of data
that compiled over all these years.
But the art is kinda looking at the animal
and deciding what to do next.
Take for instance, this is spied female.
She was 15 millimeters last week.
I'm gonna go ahead and ultrasound her.
If she hasn't grown at all
there's a chance she might be going backwards.
That's where just the art of kind of knowing
what to do really takes place.
So you kinda don't have to waste your resources of breeding
an animal that's not gonna produce anyway.
So let's go ahead and ultrasound her
and get an idea where she's at.
(lively music)
And just as I suspected her, she actually went backwards.
So we went from 15 down to 13 millimeters
and you could just tell, you know, again
the feel that art, right?
Or the fell of the way she looks,
the way she's laying in her cage,
the way she's feeding, the ways everything is going on.
I just figured this girl
was probably not gonna produce this year.
So now I'm not gonna waste a male I'm breeding her
because there's no sense.
She's not gonna produce.
We're gonna just have to shelf her and wait till next year.
(lively upbeat music)
Now this one's a really interesting one.
This is actually a beautiful animal,
silver streak bongo mojave.
I mean my goodness, what an animal.
Bred to actually a banana GHI, that would be a great combo.
But you can tell she's not a big girl at all.
I bred her hoping she was gonna feed and really fill out.
Well, she turned out going up to 19 millimeters,
which is a lot, which basically once they hit 20, 22,
it's almost a lot for them to breed.
But the fact is a lot of times when females are this size,
I'll see them go to 20 and then go backwards
or what we call phantoming out, right?
So let's ultrasound her and see what's going on.
(lively music)
But this is very very interesting.
And I'm not really sure what's gonna happen here, guys
because she's actually at 36 millimeters.
So she went from 19 to 36.
That's just pre-ovulation.
But I really didn't think this girl was gonna go,
I still have my doubts.
I'm not gonna lie to you here.
But if she ovulates in the next week or so
which is what would happen with the girl
that's at 36 millimeters,
then we may actually get that clutch
and that's gonna be an absolute banger.
(lively music)
- Hi guys.
I'm Brian and this is Barczyk
and we're about to start the day.
- What are you guys doing?
- We're working.
- Working what?
Do you guys need the butt to hold the pocket?
It's so heavy?
- Yes.
(everybody laughs)
- We've got to clean Butterscotch, she shed out
and we're open later today so.
(playful music)
Get the snake out.
- [Cameraman] Towards the front.
(Mike faintly speaking)
Just did, you gotta grab it towards the front.
- [Mike] We do it every other weekend.
Oh.
- He's scared.
- No, I'm not scared.
I'm trying to get the snake out.
It's too early for this.
(playful music)
Come on.
(playful music)
(Jay laughs)
- Come on.
Where's the snake at, Mike?
- [Mike] I got her.
(Jay laughs)
Kind of.
(playful music)
Got it.
(playful music)
Okay, we're good.
- [Cameraman] Right.
♪ Baap baap ba-ra-ra-rab ♪
♪ Butterscotch ♪
(playful music)
(Jay faintly speaking)
(water slooshing)
- [Jay] Would you put her in?
- [Mike] Jay, what you doing?
(playful music)
(water slooshing)
Riding on this bowl, just playing around the tail.
(playful music)
(water slooshing)
(playful music)
(lively upbeat music)
- This actually a pastel leopard clown ball python,
that's actually cool.
Now both this and my pastel lesser leopard clown ball python
both are females that typically produce
like super late in the year.
So this girl was seven millimeters.
She just went to 13 millimeters.
Let's see if she's grown some more.
(lively music)
And unfortunately she hasn't grown.
So I'm gonna continue to breed her
'cause last year she laid in October.
So we still have a ways to go, but you can see she's chunky.
She looks great.
She's been breeding just hasn't gone.
Let's hit that lesser leopard clown right now.
And like I said, this was the last clutch,
the last two years in a row.
So she didn't produce until October of both years
so I don't know what's gonna happen.
She was at 14 millimeters about a week and a half ago.
Hopefully, she'll be at 16 or 17 millimeters
'cause this girl is a girl I definitely wanna see produce.
(lively playful music)
And really, she's still at 14 millimeters.
But again, last year I remember it was about June or so
that she went from 14, 15 millimeters
and popped up to 25 and 30 millimeters.
So again, both those female clowns look really good
but again, this is what I'm talking about.
The art and the science coming together, right?
I'm scientifically looking for follicles,
but also artistically looking at the animal deciding
whether to put resources into breeding.
With the spied,I decided it's done for the year,
not worth it.
With these girls, I'm going to continue to breed
until I feel like it's not worth it.
It might be another two or three months.
Hopefully, they'll pop.
And the whole point is spend the most time you can
with your animals.
The more time you spend with your animals,
the more you're gonna get a feel for what's going on.
So you can use the science behind things
but also get the feel for what to do
to be as successful as you can.
(lively upbeat music)
- Today I need to go through this dark rod cage here
and thin it out a little bit.
It's a little bit crazy overgrown.
I really liked the way it looks but I'm gonna go through
pull out the dead leaves and stuff up there.
Probably pull out one of these plants up front
so you can actually see the dark frogs.
But yeah, let's get started.
- [Brian] There's always a really fine line when it comes
to a reptile zoo, like the reptarium,
where we want these enclosures to look naturalistic
and planted and absolutely beautiful.
But the same time, we don't want them so planted
that when our patrons come in to actually see the animals,
they can't find them.
So right now, Jessica's obviously just trimming things down
so that the frogs actually are able to be seen.
And you know, just beautiful cage with a bunch of plants
and you're not even sure where it is.
It's almost like that scene for Jurassic park
where it's like, where's the T-Rex?
Well, we wanna make sure that we're really riding that line
between beautiful enclosures
and also being able to see the animals.
(loud whooshing)
(djembe music)
(loud whooshing)
- Guys, guys, check this out, come here check it out.
And this is a good example of why you should
be checking your animals every single day
because this is a pinstripe female.
And look at that.
Wooh-hooh!
Looks like some eggies.
Looks like a nice clutch too.
The fact is I didn't expect her to lay for two more weeks.
So she's two weeks early, probably I miss marked it
to be honest with you, but if I don't go through
every animal every day, I might've missed that.
So what do you say?
We are first off, let's hit just this one little.
(chorale music)
And now I'm gonna set up an egg box.
(lively upbeat music)
Let's just go ahead.
Take this girl down and we'll actually get her off her eggs.
And I'll tell you what, she was bred to a banger male.
And it's this boy right here
which is a pewter bee lesser bongo.
That's a lot of cool stuff.
That is a pastel.
It's a cinnamon, it's a spider,
it's a lesser and it's a bongo.
And then we're breeding into a pinstripe.
That is a lot of genes.
Let's see how many eggs she has.
Can I tell you what, for a little girl she's not that big.
Look at the clutch size right there.
This is what I always say.
I love this size of eggs, right?
They're kinda like maybe 70% the size of a big egg, right?
You know, but the babies are gonna hatch out
just fine and do well.
But look at this girl, she's maybe 16, 1700 grams.
And look at all of these eggs that she laid whole doggy.
That is a good clutch right there.
Just trying to get this off the paper really quick
without her biting me, put them over here.
We'll slide this girl back in.
As always we'll get her cleaned up, get her all washed up.
Now, interestingly enough, I look at this clutch,
I don't know what's going on with this egg right here.
This is a really bizarre egg because it looks like an egg
but it feels kinda loose
and it's kinda deflate a little bit.
Not really sure what's gonna happen.
That's gonna go term or not, I'm not sure.
It looks good but I don't think I've ever seen an egg
that's kinda folded like that.
That is definitely weird.
Nevertheless, we've got two, four, six, eight, 10, 11 eggs.
I mean 11 eggs for about 1600 gram female.
That is ridiculous.
And again, think of the combos that we could have with us.
I can not wait for 57 days.
Now, this is gonna be an amazing clutch to cut.
- Oh yeah, I'll work more than anything.
- Nope, nope.
Let's start from the top of it.
No, you don't see.
Don't touch her, Mike.
- I did not grab her.
- Yeah, I did not grab her.
I picked her up and then you pissed her off.
Get this shed off of her nose.
- See, as soon as you touch her, she does not.
- I didn't even touch her yet.
- [Jay] She seen you coming, I'll get this.
- [Mike] I'll put you in this stuff.
And now Jay's all wet.
- [Jay] That's fine.
I'm getting all of this stuff shut off.
- [Mike] I think she's good now.
- I think that my shirt definitely a.
- [Mike] Was soaking wet
- Yup but you got the rest.
- Hope you guys enjoyed today's video.
If you did, here is a playlist of me handling a bunch
of big animals on this side, right over here.
Please do me a favor and subscribe to the channel.
Have a wonderful day, reptile army.
Remember be kind to somebody
and I promise I'll see you tomorrow.