- Hey, good morning, everybody,
and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is amazing.
Andrea is actually on vacation this week,
and Bruce and Jessica unfortunately had some car issues.
So guess what?
On top of everything else,
Lori and myself have to do all of the work.
Now this is is actually the daily list
of all the things that the keepers need to do here,
and every day we check off every single one.
That way we know every animal gets
everything it needs every single day.
And we're gonna take you guys along on the journey
because that's my job for the day.
So the first thing we're gonna do is
actually do some misting.
Now, a lot of our animals are on automatic misters,
but we have a handful of cages that aren't on misters.
So let's just go ahead and start checking off the list.
First one we're gonna start with is actually Jumper,
the Cuban night anole.
And basically why we don't have misters on these cages
are the ones that almost would get over misted
with our other misters, right?
So we just go through and we mist them
just so that they have enough humidity.
They get their drinking water
and all that type of stuff that they need,
but we're not overdoing it to where
the humidity will be too high with them.
Obviously, stuff like frogs, and some geckos,
and stuff like that need much higher humidity
than something like Jumper would need here,
but that's it.
We just go through.
We mist all the ones.
The next ones up actually are gonna be the leaf tail geckos.
(upbeat music)
And a lot of these things like the leaf tail geckos
really don't drink out of water dishes.
They're gonna drink off the moisture from the leaves
and the branches.
So just wanna get a nice misting down for these guys.
This is a cage I'll probably add a mister to,
to be honest with ya because he could be misted
right along with the other animals.
But we only have a handful of cages
we actually manually mist.
So I'll go ahead and mist those last ones,
and then I'll move onto the next thing of the day.
Next up is all the veggie eating animals,
but the first thing we have to do is obviously take out
the veggies from yesterday.
We'll clean their dishes up.
We'll go ahead and prepare
a bunch of the veggies for these guys,
and then go ahead and feed 'em up.
(mellow music)
You always want that disinfectant to sit
for about 10-15 minutes so it really soaks in.
We'll typically use some Quatricide or an F10 solution
so that kills all the bacteria and everything like that.
So we'll come back to these.
Let's go cut some veggies.
I just wanna give as much variety.
So each week we kinda switch things up.
Right now we're gonna give some romaine lettuce,
some squash, some carrots, some zucchini.
We're also gonna give some blackberries as treats,
and then of course, we always dust with a calcium
and vitamin powder mix.
So again, I'm just gonna cut this up kinda,
kinda into spots where they can all eat it.
(mellow music)
I actually enjoy being kind of part of the daily grind,
I'm not gonna lie to you. (laughs)
So it's been kind of a fun way to start the morning.
I actually have Mazuri tortoise chow here,
which iguanas really like,
but it's kinda hard, right?
So what we do is we just fill it up with a little water,
let it soak for about 15 minutes
to kinda get it soft so they can eat it almost like a mush.
So I'll go ahead and clean all the food dishes
while this is soaking and getting kinda moist.
(mellow music)
And then I just basically divvy up
this moistened tortoise chow here.
And a lot of iguana breeders, believe it or not,
will feed like a big majority of their food
that goes to their iguana to actually do this.
We also put a little bit in for the monkey tail skinks too
because they like that as well.
And then that concludes the produce portion
of feeding the reptarium.
I'm extremely sad right now because I think that Karma
may be in his last days here.
He is looking really sad.
You guys know that he's been retired
for the last couple months,
and he's been doing really well over at BHB quite time.
Guys, I don't think he's gonna make it through the day.
I'm gonna be totally honest with you.
I mean, he's not grabbing on.
He's just hanging on like this barely.
His hands aren't going.
His eyes are kinda sunk in.
And we're gonna do everything we can do
to give him the last day two of his life the best we can,
but guys, I honestly don't even think
he's gonna make through the day.
I've had Karma for so long.
He's such an amazing animal.
And like I mentioned, we retired him
so that he could spend his last days here at BHB.
The last few months he's been amazing.
We've spoiled him.
But I mean, I'll keep you guys updated,
but I just, I mean, I wanna cry right now.
I don't think he's gonna make it through the day.
So, just wanna spend some time with him before the end.
I'm not gonna lie, the fact that I have to do all the work
that normally Bruce, or Jessica,
or Andrea do is probably kinda good today
just to kinda keep my mind off of the whole Karma situation.
'Cause obviously, I get so attached to these animals,
when things happen to them, it's really devastating.
Kinda take the wind out of my sails.
So the fact that I can just kinda get over here
and spend some time with these guys,
I think is at least keeping my mind kinda occupied
as the day goes on.
But you guys know I love feeding the frogs,
and at least, like I said, there's some joy in that.
That's for sure.
And that is definitely one of the downsides
to keeping animals is that
the lifespan of most of these reptiles,
with the exception of tortoises and maybe alligators,
are gonna be shorter than our lifespan.
So, Karma lived a full life.
There's no doubt about that.
He's an old lizard,
but it still doesn't make it any easier.
(mellow music)
Now it's just time to feed bugs.
I'm gonna start actually with baby Karma,
by other nosy be male panther chameleon.
There we go, buddy.
I actually got Karma when it was a little smaller than this.
As a matter of fact, it's like eight or nine years ago,
something like that.
And it's cool to see the new baby Karma kinda growing up
and becoming a good animal ambassador,
eating off a tong just like my big Karma did.
So, it's really cool.
And I'll feed this guy a handful of super worms.
(mellow music)
Look at these little.
These guys are little hunters for sure.
Oh my gosh, they love their roaches.
They are so absolutely.
I mean, it's cool to have a little dwarf monitor
that's got the intelligence of like Elvis,
which is this little guy.
And the fact is, guys, is that
being able to spend time with my animals
is always what makes me the happiest.
I mean, no matter how down I am, or when things happen,
when I get to see animals like these Iraqi monitors
eating like this, just being savages,
I mean, it just brightens my heart.
I mean, it is absolutely the best way
to put me in a good mood.
- You could probably take over.
Everybody would wanna know who you are.
- Yep, we're showing you guys.
(laughing)
- We're gonna feed 'em to R.J.
- Okay.
- I was gonna bring in the new year with something big.
- What? - Can I have your boots?
Those are pretty nice boots, man.
- [Lady] Yeah, R.J. won't eat the boots, but.
- Yeah, I'll take the boots. Thanks, bud.
All right guys, we're gonna have to unpack
some old roaches here
because Bruce and Jessica aren't here yet.
I don't want these guys sitting in the box,
but they kinda creep me out a little bit
'cause just read this right here.
Loose in box.
Let's open it up.
Oh, okay, thank God.
That's what I thought.
I thought they were in these separate boxes.
So we'll just get these small little 5/8's.
I don't know, I was never good at math or anything.
(groans) I think these are the large.
They're really creepy.
They grab onto you.
I don't like them.
Okay, took me a long time to even get used to super worms,
but let's get 'em unpacked.
(groans)
Dude, that's not cool, bro.
Oh my!
Oh, it touched me.
We'll get these little guys in.
Let's see what we got here.
I just wanna say thanks to Jay.
This was an awesome secret Santa gift.
Okay, it's the fossil.
Let's see what we got.
- [Jay] You're so welcome, bro.
You know I got you.
- Let's see what we got here.
Oh, gosh, it's a devil.
It's the devils.
(record scratches)
- [Lady] Really?
- [Man] What?
- [Lady] Did you just call me the devil?
- NO, no!
No, the bugs!
No, the bugs are the devil!
That was perfect timing.
- You are so busted.
- No, I'm not!
I didn't say, I swear to you!
You can roll the footage back.
I said, the devils are here.
- Yeah, you can roll the footage back.
- I opened it, and I said, the devils.
- The truth comes out, behind my back you call me the devil.
- No, you are an angel.
You are nothing less than an angel.
Please, I didn't.
I was talking about the bugs, you guys.
I was talking about the roaches, I swear.
- Yeah, okay.
- It's not a good way to start the new year, okay?
That's all I'm gonna say.
Maybe I'll take you guys over,
and we can feed some baby frilled lizards
'cause I haven't done that, yeah.
- [Jay] Let's do that.
- We'll show you from box to gut, all right?
- Oh, my God!
I've never seen anything like that.
I don't think he rolled over like a dog.
So I'm gonna assume that he probably went under Matilda
or she crawled over.
And we obviously have to take of this, (laughs)
but I guess I've seen it all now.
All right, guys.
So, (laughing)
this is ridiculous.
He obviously needs a bath.
So, that's what we're gonna do.
(laughing)
- All right, guys.
We got the bugs out of the box.
I got Mary with me over here.
And we figured we'd feed these little baby frilled lizards.
We'll have to mark the charts,
make sure everything we do correctly over here
'cause this really isn't our turf.
But I wanna see these little guys eat.
You know what I mean?
I can't believe the size 'em.
Mary, open it up.
Open the cage.
Let's see what we got.
Look at Little Mac.
Dude, you're not little anymore.
Let's see if he'll eat a roach. Here, hold onto him.
Let's see if he'll eat it out of my hand.
Oh!
That was awesome.
You know what, now that we're working with these,
the price just keeps on going up, people.
(laughing)
You know what I mean?
These are hand-fed babies.
- Come on Santana.
Let's go. And it's like I've always said,
feeding bugs and stuff like that to monitors
is really healthy for 'em.
Having just a complete like meat diet isn't that great.
In the wild, these guys are gonna be constantly
kinda working around, running around the fields
just kinda looking for bugs,
and they're gonna be kinda eating bugs all day long.
So this is more of their natural diet on the normal side.
Of course they're gonna occasionally come across a rodent,
or a bird, or maybe a dead animal that they can scavenge on.
But the majority of the time,
in particular with savannah monitors,
they're gonna be foraging for bugs just like this,
and much healthier for it.
That way you don't get what they call
fatty liver disease with these guys,
where they get too much fat in 'em,
and it can shorten their life a little bit
'cause they're eating machines.
They'll eat, and eat, and eat,
and really eat theirself to death.
- All right, nice and fresh
and ready to go back. (laughing)
All right, Steve.
I'm sure he feels a lot better now.
(laughs)
I know I do.
- Flaming Hot has a whole bowl of veggies,
but I'll see if he wants a little treat with a roach.
He loves roaches.
There ya go, buddy.
There ya go.
Just gonna see if my boy wants some roaches here, Toothless.
I'm not sure if he will or not, but he might.
Oh, yep, there he is.
Oh, yep, yep.
He got it. (laughing)
There it is.
Good job.
And again, just really good to vary things up
with these monitor lizards so that they're not
just eating chicken, and fish, and rodents,
and stuff like that.
Plus, a little hunting is good for 'em too.
There it is.
(laughs) Go, Toothless.
Oh my God, this guy is such an amazing animal.
It's honestly impossible to be in a bad mood
when you see these types of things.
I mean, it's so cool,
and I think back to when I first got Toothless,
and he wasn't doing well,
and I wasn't even sure if he was gonna make it
'cause he had kind of a little infection
and stuff like that.
And now here, fast forward a year,
and this guy is just unbelievably doing well.
And although, no matter what happens
when I lose one of my animals that I love,
my pets, my animal ambassadors,
it's such a heavy hit to me,
but I also realize I'm surrounded with.
so many amazing animals,
and I get to experience such incredible things
on a daily basis that I really do feel blessed.
There it goes, buddy.
There it goes.
Whoa, it got away.
Oh, you caught it.
(laughs) Oh my God.
At least Toothless can put a smile on my face.
Really honestly, so many of these animals,
even when I'm feeling down can put a huge smile on my face
'cause they are truly incredible.
(mellow music)
Oh guys, I've been keeping an eye on Karma
for the last few hours,
and I knew it was really close,
and unfortunately Karma's gone.
And (sighs)
it's part of keeping animals,
and it's the part that is the most difficult by a long shot.
Karma lived a long time.
We knew that Karma was going down, getting older,
and that's why we brought 'em over
for the last few months.
He was just, it doesn't get any easier, guys.
I've been doing this forever,
and that's part of it.
It doesn't get any easier,
but I'm glad that we let him have the last few months here
where he really was for most of his life right here
in this exact spot where he felt comfortable.
But my poor Karma's gone,
and I'm not gonna cry 'cause I don't wanna do that,
but I wanna cry. (laughing)
This happens,
and I know that sometimes it's hared,
and some people don't share this experience,
but I want you guys to know how much
these animals mean to me,
and that if you're getting into animals,
this is something you're gonna face at some point too.
Karma lived a long life,
probably over lived his life expectancy,
and he made so many people happy.
He was such a good animal ambassador for us.
I'm so glad that he was able to spend the first
seven/eight months of the reptarium over there
before we brought him back into retirement.
And so, I'll always remember him.
We got baby Karma that's doing so well next door, and.
But I'm gonna take Karma,
and I'm gonna just get a little box for him,
and I'm gonna bury him out in my backyard.
So, he'll be close.
So yeah, I don't wanna get,
I don't want this to be a bummer video at all.
So, I'm gonna just move on.
But please.
But Karma's gone.
(inspirational music)
So got through all the animals, got everything good.
Everything is happy and healthy here,
and it did really help me kinda
take my mind off of things with Karma.
It sucks.
I mean, it's always gonna suck.
That's the way it is,
but unfortunately, that's also part of keeping
really any animal that is gonna live
a shorter lifespan than a human.
And I just know Karma really affected
a lot of people's lives.
People loved Karma.
I loved Karma.
The crew loved Karma,
and he's certainly gonna be missed.
There's no doubt about that.
But thank you guys for bearing with me here
and being a part of it.
I promise, I'll see you guys tomorrow.
(inspirational music)