- Got my pet alligator just chilling out over here today.
Little out in the cage time.
He's got some more areas for activities now,
that I've moved some of these rack systems out.
So I let him walk around a little bit,
but it's time to get him back.
Come on, Archie.
Come on, big boy.
Up you go, up you go. (alligator hissing)
Oh yeah, he's getting heavy.
Okay.
Archie, man.
We gotta put him on a diet or something like that.
That boy is getting heavy.
To think that, you know, he's only maybe half grown.
That's at that point where I could barely pick him up.
Pretty soon, it's gonna take two of us,
but he's still a sweetheart.
I mean, how cool is that to have an alligator just pick up,
don't have to worry about him biting you
or anything like that.
But, back in the water after he has several hours
of, you know, running around time.
Although mangroves are a Colubrid snake,
believe it or not, they don't brumate,
and they actually will breed this time of year.
So we'll start putting males and females together,
literally in the next day or two.
And we usually get our first clutches of mangroves
in like January, maybe early February.
And we have a whole bunch of new ones up to size this year.
So last year I think we had only two or three females.
This year, we actually have a whole bunch more.
We have about 10 more females that are ready to breed
and this one's about ready to strike
at the camera any second.
It's not happy, that's for sure.
But we should have a bunch of little mangrove
snakes this year, which is pretty darn impressive.
Again, a lot of different stuff breeds differently, right?
So we're gonna start breeding Children's pythons,
Savu pythons, we'll start breeding rainbow boas
here in the end of January, February.
So some stuff starts breeding now
Some stuff breeds here in another couple months
and not all, oh, not all colubrids actually,
whew, not all colubrids actually brumate,
some breed right now.
Even the cribos are actually gonna start breeding
here anytime.
So it's an exciting time to get back in the breeding season,
just as we're ending the 2021 season.
We're literally beginning the 2022 season already.
(screen whooshing) It's been a minute
since I've shown you guys Betty White,
of course the hypo whiplash.
It's it's just a really cool animal.
Of course we were hoping it was gonna be super white.
There's actually what they would call hypo zeros
that are really much more white.
But she's definitely cool and I still love her to death
and she's getting so pig and just a great, great animal.
And speaking of beards,
you guys may have noticed that I have a little bit
of a beard thing going on.
Of course I did the no shave November
and it really was about health.
You know, I told you guys that really for about a month
and a half before November, I hadn't been feeling good
have been kinda dealing with some sick issues.
And you know, I was just about getting healthy
and I've been now six weeks without pizza or bad food.
I'm pretty proud of myself for kidding that part
cause I love pizza and I'm feeling much better.
And I have to think about, you know,
I'm not really a beard guy,
but I want to know from you guys,
should I shave it at the end of November?
Or should I grow it out until the end of the year
and see what happens?
I'm not sure if what I'm going to do,
but let me know in the comments what you guys think.
Like I said, it feels weird.
I've never been a beard guy at all
but, at the same time I might do it. I don't know.
Let me know what you guys think.
And maybe me and Betty White will look exactly the same
with nice big beards.
So interestingly enough, pickles actually is down here
and shed house.
So, first thing we would do is just get the shed out of here
and take a look at it really quick.
So, you guys remember with Gemma that they go
through like a pre-ovulation shed, right?
So, chances are that she will hopefully ovulate here
relatively soon.
Typically when they shed like this,
So average in about two weeks and then after that,
there's about 50 days before they lay eggs in that range.
Now, interestingly enough,
pickles is way down here at the bottom
and I'm gonna just pick her up real gently
and she might be down there looking
kinda as a nesting site even.
You can see she definitely has some swells.
So, I'm going to put her up on this branch,
and what I want to do is actually feel for eggs in here
and she's definitely looking to stand it.
I can just really gently feel, and this is called palpating.
right?
And I'm just kinda feeling for what's inside here
letting her crawl through.
And I can definitely feel some bumps in here for sure.
And you can see again, her color
is much different than normal.
Now, her boyfriend is way up there in the corner
and he's already bred her a few times.
But definitely you can see kinda even her belly
is pretty full right now.
So, I'm hoping that she's gonna go through ovulation
here within the next, maybe two weeks.
And then again, after that, she'll go through another shed.
Pretty rapid shed, just like Gemma did
and that shed will be what they call a pre-lay shed.
Now, typically about 30 days after pre-lay shed is where
they'll lay with green tree pythons.
Oftentimes it's like 20, 21 day.
So, we gonna let her just kinda go up here,
get a little bit more heat,
but she's probably down there looking like, Hey,
where am I gonna go When I wanna actually lay my eggs?
Right? And nesting in that spot.
So, what we probably gonna do,
is build the nest box that we can put in there.
That way she can climb in it,
feel a little bit more secure as well too.
So, we'll do that in the next couple of weeks,
but nevertheless, I think things are looking really good
for pickles.
And I think we gonna get a clutch of eggs here
in the next couple months.
(screen whooshing) continuing that process.
We're actually heading over to the architects
right now for a quick meeting,
got a couple of changes I want them to do
before they really get too deep
into the construction part of it.
So, we'll see if they can work out.
And I'll maybe I'll tell you part of it when we get back.
(upbeat music)
Just back from the architects.
Things went actually really well.
Everything that I wanted to do,
kinda a new additions and stuff like that,
they said I could do.
Cause I want to extend the dig site a little bit
by digging out the basement a little bit.
They said they could definitely do that.
A couple other additions couldn't move the off south.
So, now I'll be honest with you now it's about redesigning
the Aquarium and the Reptelium so that it all makes sense.
So, yep. Let's get to it.
(upbeat music)
So this is actually the Aquarium drawing that we kinda the
original sketch.
So now I'm going back and kinda redoing some things cause
I've changed a bunch of stuff.
So, this is the fun part.
It's where the creativity really comes in.
And the whole idea is is that when people come into the
Aquarium, just like the Reptilium,
I want it to be at least an hour.
We're struggling with that a little bit in the beginning.
Like, how can we make this an hour long event where people
leave and maybe feel like they could spend
another half hour, really the original drawings was like,
I think like 40, 50 minutes people would be done.
So, now I'm rearranging some things to make it a good
like hour and a half at least experience at least. Right?
So, this is the fun part. Let's get to it.
(upbeat music)
So just kinda shot and things down
and I know I'm gonna show you this.
It's gonna look like a jumbled mess,
but I wanna kinda walk you through.
So, essentially originally we gonna have offices
upstairs and actually these are gonna be like our offices
have a couple offices back here and stuff like that.
The truth is that now we are probably gonna buy
that building on the back of our parking lot.
So we gonna move our offices into that building,
which frees up all this new space up here. Right?
Which means that, that gives me that extra 30,
40 minutes of timing, not to mention
I redesigned some things here, made some more rooms,
just kinda move these tanks over a little bit.
These are like, you know, cylinder tanks here.
I'm gonna have a coy pond here.
Obviously this is gonna be the stingray pole.
So what you gonna do is you gonna walk up the
stairs or the elevator here.
This'll be the entrance here.
There'll be a two floor atrium right here. You walk in.
Now I move these tanks over a little bit.
These will be back to where you can see through them
also a glass window here when you walk up into the atrium
where you can actually see right into the aquarium,
as well as glass over on this side.
Now, this whole office area here I haven't designed yet,
but that can now be all enclosures tanks
and stuff like that.
So again, we gonna have, you know, big predator fish tank
here with like Arapaima and big fish
that you can actually feed over here.
We gonna have, you know, shark tank right here.
We gonna have the stingray tank.
This is going to be actually a ramp that comes up
like this to where you can get like anywhere from,
it will be five feet on one side,
but only like two foot on the other side with the little
stairway on the backside,
we gonna have a coy pond where you can feed the koi.
We actually gonna put little alligators up here too.
So our Patriots that just go to the Aquarium can actually
feed alligators, just like they do down at their Reptilium
Of course. We gonna have a fish spot,
just like we do down right over here.
Then over on this wall, we gonna have a bunch of tanks.
This is actually the birthday party room here.
So a nice big birthday party room for people upstairs.
We gonna have a dark room right here
where you can walk in on either side.
It will be a darker that's where we'll have our jellyfish,
we'll have our glow fish, you know, stuff like that.
That needs to be kind of in the dark area
because this whole area here is gonna have a skylight in it.
So we have natural light coming in,
lots of natural vegetation,
growing big trees and stuff like that.
And then on this side, again,
we gonna have back to back tanks.
So, this side, you gonna see this big curve
with giant tanks, I mean, literally like two,
3000 gallon tanks.
But on the backside to this back area over here,
these are gonna be tanks as well.
And then, you know, again, lots of decides.
So, I really think now that we kinda redesigning it
and I still have a little bit more to go here,
but I think that you gonna be able to come in here
and even the general just kind of person that wants to go
to the aquarium, not the guy like me,
that would spend five minutes looking at each tank.
But someone that's just gonna walk through. Oh,
that's nice. That's nice.
I think they could spend an hour and a half at the Aquarium
and actually still feel like they could spend more time.
Right?
So, that's the whole point is to kinda have something
that spends more than an hour.
That way if you buy an hour you leave and you kinda like,
oh, I want to come back cause I can see more.
Or if you spend two hours, you know,
you could still take the time up
but I think this is working well.
I have to now start working on the reptilium expansion
and how that's gonna look too.
So, I'll be kinda messing with this over the next month
to be honest with you
but it's starting to really look good I can see it
in my head and I think it's gonna be amazing.
We are gonna start our breeding process and the first
process to be totally honest with you,
is I have to go through with this piece of paper
and mark down every single female and what she is
in her body weight and all that type of stuff.
So, I have an idea of when I wanna actually start
breeding her.
After that, I have to write down all of the males
that we have and then I have to go through and pair up
what I wanna breed to what.
My breeding groups, which are takes a lot.
I mean, you know, going through and marking everything.
You know, it'll take me an hour or two, something like that.
But then the actual process of deciding what male
to breed to what female that can take like eight,
10 hours of scheming, and we have a bunch of new males
up to size this year.
So, it's gonna be interesting to decide
what to breed direct. It's exciting. Right?
And then here in another few days after I'm done
with all of this, I have to rearrange all of my groups
into the actual breeding groups where it makes sense.
So, that's the easiest.
And basically what we'll do is like,
let's say group one is down here we want the first male
to be right here So we can go one male, two male,
three male, we're not walking around in circles
and stuff like that.
So, first thing I have to do is just mark all my females.
(upbeat music)
Now that I have all the females inventory,
I have to start going through the new males
and there're some bangers.
I tell you what,
I've got a couple of these ones right here.
These are actually banana Sinny lori and wow,
are these things incredible?
So I can't wait to decide what to breed this to.
This banana leopard clown is a ripper.
I mean, it is gonna be so amazing to start plugging him in.
Again, we're just trying to always upgrade those males
so that the clutches are even that much better.
Not to mention we have a bunch of new females
that are up to size this year too.
So, this coming season should be pretty interesting.
I've been looking at this snake for the last,
you know, 19, 20 months as I've been raising him up.
And finally he's about ready to breed.
We should be able to go this year.
This is part of that mystery clutch that I don't know,
unless you call this like a graphite ball python
or something like that is just so absolutely incredible.
Let's see what happens later on this year and see
what he produces.
This male actually is in shed, but it's an absolute ripper,
it's actually a Mojave and she banana clown ball Python.
Again, going to some cool stuff.
So we're actually upping our clown game this year.
(upbeat music)
This is actually a banana pewter lessor Bango hat for clown.
So there's all kinds of stuff going on in it.
So I'm excited about that. And this is just a spattering.
We have about 40 males that are up to size
that are all bangers this year for the first time.
So, just trying to decide what to do.
So, just gonna finish this up and then I have to put
my thinking cap on here maybe tomorrow,
the next day and get all these groups together.
Couldn't be more excited about the fact that we actually
have a super lori leopard male that is big enough to breed
this season.
So he's definitely gonna go to some Lori stuff,
he's gonna go to some other stuff he got to remember,
cause he's super. Everything is gonna be Lori.
But again, now we can get, you know
who knows what we can get to be honest with you,
but he's gonna definitely get put to work a lot
this year.
(upbeat music)
So we have all the males, we have the females inventory,
what we gonna start to work on breeding.
Now I tell you what I've got to set aside a good eight
or 10 hours where I can be alone, no phones, no internet,
no anything just to sink my head into this.
Start visualizing what males I wanna go with females.
So that's gonna happen the next couple days.
Then we have to rearrange the entire amount.
And then males go in with females.
Hope you guys enjoyed today's video.
If you did do me a favor, you know, I'm gonna ask it.
Can you check out a one or two videos on that playlist
over there.
Also, could you hit that subscription button.
smash that subscription button hit means the world to me,
It really does.
have an absolutely wonderful day reptile army.
Remember be kind of sewing and I promise,
I'll see in the next one.