- Ivy, good morning, Ivy.
Good morning, girl.
Guess what today is, guys.
It's Ivy's chance to meet her boyfriend, Aries.
That's right, good morning everybody,
and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is amazing.
I am gonna get my day started
with the thing I've been waiting on for over a month now,
seeing how Aries and Ivy get along.
That's right, another anaconda is going into this enclosure,
and fingers crossed they get along,
and one day maybe have a bunch of babies.
What do you say we let my girl meet her boyfriend?
Let's go get Aries, and have a great day together.
And guess what, Aries, that's right,
he's been such a good boy
for the last month and a half or so,
hanging out here at BHB, going through his quarantine.
Again, got a complete bill of health check.
No little mites or anything that we have to worry about,
so now he is ready to go meet his girlfriend.
Let's hope they get along.
Let's go do this.
(upbeat music)
So I can't tell you how excited I am about this, guys.
It's been something that's been on my mind since I got Ivy,
thinking one day that we might have a pair.
Aries is an absolutely amazing animal,
and I'm hoping that he is a good boy, that's right.
So listen, Aries, this is the deal.
I know this is the first time you've been in with a girl,
but it's very important to make sure
that you treat her well and be good.
Remember that saying, happy wife, happy life.
You ready for this Aries?
Let's go ahead and introduce them.
And honestly, guys, I think I'm just gonna walk in here,
right into the enclosure, and let him climb up,
and do whatever he wants to do.
Now remember, the only thing that I'm nervous about, at all,
is that how will Ivy actually react, right?
She's here right now going,
"What's going on, dad, what you doing?"
And Aries has got my neck pretty good. (laughs)
Aries is just hanging on.
So Aries is climbing off now, and I'm gonna let him
just kinda go do whatever he wants to do.
Again, he's got a huge enclosure now.
Ivy's over here,
I'm not sure she even realizes what's going on yet,
but I'm sure these guys are gonna
get together at some point today.
Now do I think they're gonna breed right away?
Absolutely not, as a matter of fact,
it's not even breeding season.
I don't want them to breed,
what I want them to do is get used to one another,
and then when we get into the fall/early winter,
that's typically the breeding season.
Again, these guys have live young,
so a girl Ivy's size could literally have 20, 30 babies,
and when she gets bigger, she can have even more.
So in the meantime, I'm gonna just let Aries,
which disappeared into the back over there,
just kind of explore the cage.
You know, he's never been in a large enclosure like this,
just like Ivy wasn't before,
including this waterfall and water feature,
and I can just imagine the time
when Aries and Ivy are both in the water.
It's gonna look so absolutely incredible,
but again, they have plenty of space
to get away from one another, as well.
Ivy, what do you think, girl?
Do you know what's going on yet?
I don't think she understands either.
She's just like, "I don't know."
Once she sees Aries, I hope it goes well.
(upbeat music)
It's pretty interesting, because when I put Ivy
in this enclosure at the very beginning,
if you guys remember, she actually climbed up
and ended up in this little planting area, right here.
Aries is doing the same thing, climbing up.
I find it interesting, because, you know,
again, anacondas aren't known for climbing,
but for whatever reason,
when I put them in this large enclosure,
the first thing they think of is to climb.
I think it's interesting that he's doing
the same thing that Ivy did
when she first came into the enclosure.
So again, we're gonna keep an eye
on Aries and Ivy all day long.
Just seeing what's going on, seeing what's happening,
but right now you can see his head right over here,
right at the top of the cage.
I'm sure he's thinking, like,
"I have never seen anything like this before."
I am so happy when we get to release
new animals into huge enclosures,
so I'm gonna have a great time
just watching this little monkey.
(upbeat music)
It's been about a half hour of watching this guy,
and it's so weird because I remember Ivy
doing a very similar thing.
He crawled all the way up here, over all these trees,
now he's on the other side, and again,
he's right at the top of the enclosure.
I find that very interesting, like,
what is the psyche of an anaconda?
I've told you that I thought that anacondas
act different then most animals.
Now, don't get me wrong retics climb,
but that's because they're climbing animals.
Anacondas really aren't climbing animals,
so I wonder what it is.
Maybe it's because it's something new,
and he's smelling the smell of Ivy,
and so maybe he's a little intimidating,
so he's thinking go up, like, up in a tree,
up in a cave, get away.
It's just interesting to me, and again,
Ivy did the same thing when I first put here in here,
and obviously there was no smell of any other animal.
So I just find it interesting how he's always going up,
and trying to go out of the cage that way.
So we'll just let him get settled in,
and hopefully he comes back down,
eventually even makes his way over to the water.
Every now and then, I just want to run through
some of the racer colubrids that we have coming up,
that Lori has set aside,
and this is a tangerine albino Honduran milk snake
that is just an absolute ripper.
I mean, look at the color on these things.
That is just crazy.
So again, it's an albino,
but it's also polygenically bred to have them.
It's an amazing thing, and look at it,
it's just biting the heck out of me.
What's up little buddy?
Yeah, it can be a little feisty, but it is beautiful.
Then there's one of these pastel pink albino hognose snakes.
I mean, these things are just so adorable.
You guys know I love western hognose snakes,
and the pastel pinks are just
kind of near and dear to my heart,
because we were working with them right from the beginning.
I mean, one of the first people that had them,
and again, I've told this story before,
that they weren't genetically that great in the beginning,
so it took us six or seven years of lots of outbreeding
to get them as strong as they are today.
Now they're just as strong
as a normal western hognose snake.
And in typical Cal king fashion here,
it's peeing all over me,
but this is just really beautiful
white striped desert phase black and white
California kingsnake, and it's just so classic.
I mean, you know, this is like something you could find
in the wild, just like this, no modifications.
It's got a little bit more white then normal,
but nevertheless, you could find something like that,
and it's just naturally a beautiful snake.
Now this is a modified black and white California kingsnake.
Again, this is the banded phase.
I showed you the striped one,
this would be what they would be banded,
but this is the high white banded California kingsnake.
So this is generations and generations
of breeding the highest white banded animals,
and eventually producing this
really high white banded Cal king.
One of the most striking snakes I've ever seen.
I love these guys,
and I hope in a year or so they'll be up to size,
and we can actually produce some of them.
What's up you little feisty monkey?
Look at this little dude.
Unbelievable, absolutely love them, and he is gorgeous.
What's up, buddy?
What are you doing?
Whoa!
Crazy monkey.
For the first time, guys, look at him, he's coming down!
He's checking it out!
He's gonna go in the water in a second.
Ivy's just sitting there.
Holy cow, dude, oh my God, he's in the water!
Now he's right by Ivy's head.
Oh my God, this was the moment I was waiting for!
Oh my God, he's touching her now!
She doesn't seem to have reacted at all,
she's just like, "I wonder--"
Oh, he seems really interested, like, "What is this?"
He's probably never smelled another snake before,
especially not another female anaconda.
Look at it, oh my God!
He is loving it, and she doesn't seem to mind, at all.
She's just sitting there.
This again, is exactly what I was hoping for.
He spent the last hour kind of running around the cage,
just seeing what was going on,
wondering what was happening.
Finally, now he's in the water with Ivy.
This is absolutely incredible,
and look at her, she's smelling underwater.
Her tongue is over there.
It's so crazy to see her tongue underwater,
and it's bending right over
towards where she's smelling him.
Oh my gosh, this is incredible, guys.
This is absolutely wonderful,
and they seem to be fine,
it doesn't seem to be anything else.
Ooh, what an adrenaline rush!
Ooh, tell you what, that is awesome!
And the thing I think that's so amazing
is the fact that we're actually seeing, right now,
Aries, the first time he's ever been able to go
into a large water basin like this.
He's never had that before in his life.
It's so cool to see.
You can just see the excitement on him.
He's just flickering his tongue underwater,
he's holding his breath, he's cruisin' around,
he's looking so amazing.
This is what I live for.
I mean, this is so incredible.
This is where anacondas belong, in the water like that.
That's why I can't wait to get
(indistinct) new enclosure made, too,
to see how she reacts like this.
This is what I dreamt of for the last month,
of what was going to happen,
and look it it, oh!
Completely, now, he's completely in the water,
and submerged, and he's just gonna cruise around.
And the thing I really like is although Ivy
seems interested, she doesn't seem to be annoyed, at all.
There doesn't seem to be any aggression,
or any concern, at all.
So I'm gonna let these guys get kind of familiar
with one another, see what happens.
Again, I'm gonna be keeping an eye all day on these guys.
How awesome is that?
(upbeat music)
I hope you guys are as excited as I am about this,
because look at her, she's literally, like, nudging him.
Trying to smell him underwater.
This is incredible.
This is what I kind of envisioned would happen in the wild
if two anacondas came together
that had never been together before.
Ooh, doggy!
This has been such a great experience.
So much more insane then I ever expected.
Look at him, look at him interact!
Wow, this is so frickin' awesome.
And you notice that there's no real crazy things going on.
Like, the first thing, when a snake is irritated,
is they'll actually urate, they'll actually urinate,
and neither one of them are doing it.
Neither one of them are wagging their tails.
I don't any see any signs of aggression,
concern, agitation, anything.
More curiosity than anything.
That's what I was hoping was gonna happen.
And take a look at this, guys.
Literally, Aries is climbing out of the water right now,
and Ivy is kind of following along.
She wants to go along with him, too.
So Aries now has explored the entire cage,
spent some time in the water, and now he's coming out,
and, literally, Ivy is following.
What in the world an I witnessing right now?
And just like that, guys, the first introduction is over.
Ivy was totally into it.
Aries did great.
Aries is now out of the water.
Ivy has basically retreated back to her spot,
where she was.
They are now separate.
So we'll keep an eye on them over the next couple hours,
see if anything else happens,
but that went better then I ever could have ever imagined.
(upbeat music)
Now look, Ivy is getting out of the water.
What a crazy little dance that we have going on.
Aries got out, now Aries is back in, Ivy is getting out.
I mean, I don't know what's going on.
This is just unbelievable.
I could sit here all day and just watch this.
It has been amazing,
but I don't know what she's gonna do now.
I don't know if she's gonna stay out of the water,
or come back.
I don't know what's gonna happen,
so let's just sit back and keep watching.
(upbeat music)
Lots, and lots, and lots of baby Colubrids
that are hatching out, for sure.
This is a big clutch, I think 19 or 20 greenish rat snakes.
These guys are born kind of that silver
with the saddles and stuff like that.
They end up getting kind of striped
and more greenish as they get older,
hence the name greenish ratsnake.
But like I said, baby snakes
are coming with a vengeance right now,
which means that poor Lori has to set them up,
because each one of these babies gets set up
into an individual cage.
Of corse, each cage has to then be cared for,
watered, cleaned, fed, all that stuff.
So you know, it's awesome for me, I'm not gonna lie to you.
You know, there's 19 babies, I'm like, that's awesome!
But that means that it's 19 cages that Lori has to set up,
and trust me, there is a lot, a lot of snakes
hatching right now.
So excited about this clutch right now.
I tell you, there's only two eggs, and by the way,
look at the difference of the size of the eggs, right?
This was an egg, and that was an egg from the same animal,
and then look at the difference
of the size of the babies right there.
These are actually albino Arizona mountain kingsnakes.
We had the very first ever
albino Arizona mountain kingsnakes, and I still think that,
I'm not sure anyone else is even producing them.
I haven't seen anyone else really have them very much,
but nevertheless, they are super cool.
I love Arizona mountain kingsnakes,
and I love the fact that we have albinos,
and I'm hoping someone else is producing them
that has bought them from us in the past.
Nevertheless, always cool to produce them,
and a hat to albino.
To produce two out of two albinos, that's pretty epic.
So wow, what a journey it was today,
seeing Ivy and Aries together for the fist time.
I tell you what, I loved it.
It was such an incredible, incredible thing.
I hope you guys enjoyed it, too.
If you did, here's a playlist of me
messing with big animals, big lizards, big snakes like that,
I think that you guys will enjoy.
Can you do me a favor, also?
Right up here you can subscribe
to my podcast channel called Checking In.
Every Wednesday we do a podcast.
Noah does one on Friday, that one is adult friendly.
Over on this side, you can subscribe to this vlog channel.
Turn your post notifications on, please.
Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember, be kind to someone,
and I promise I'll see you tomorrow.