- Hey, good morning everybody, and welcome to the vlog!
I hope the start of your day is amazing.
Gonna be a busy day.
We are hitting the road for Texas later on today.
Got a bunch of stuff to do in the meantime.
But I'm gonna go ahead and start with Ben and Jerry.
Now, they did actually shed,
and look at how absolutely wonderful they look.
Oh my gosh!
These guys look amazing.
Now, I'm gonna be honest with you.
This shed is not very good.
So I'm just gonna look around a little bit,
see if I can find the head.
Oh, here's the head right here.
I can see it but, ah,
that's not a very good shed right there at all.
So basically what I was trying to do is,
you guys know that we are gonna be starting
to do jewelry with the snakes.
You guys know we're gonna start doing jewelry
with the snake sheds,
and I wanted to get a really good two-headed snake shed
and do a piece of jewelry.
I think that would have been dope.
And so I was really hopeful,
but the shed didn't come out good.
You can see the eye right there.
You can see stuff, but it definitely doesn't look good.
But nevertheless, Ben and Jerry does look
absolutely incredible, oh my god.
Two-headed snakes, how awesome is that?
Oh!
So we're actually gonna weigh Matilda today,
just to see her progress.
She was 112 pounds about, what, two and a half months ago?
Three months ago?
Something like that.
Do you think, she sure seems like she's gained a bunch.
What do you think she's at now?
Oh my god, she's moving.
- I know, she's moving.
- Here we go.
I think she's gonna be at least 125 pounds.
133 pounds! - Holy crap.
- Holy moly, Matilda, good girl.
- She's eating good. (laughs)
- You're eating good.
Okay, wanna get her back in? - Yeah.
- Oh my gosh!
(grunts)
Whew, 133 pounds!
You're getting so big, girl.
(laughs)
And the whole idea is, is that,
the way I keep track of weight on animals often,
so you can see the progress, right?
The fact that she's gained 20 pounds, 21 pounds,
in just a short period of time,
tells us she's eating, she's growing.
(laughs)
She's doing all the stuff she's gonna do.
Again, she's gonna eventually get, you know,
maybe 350, 400-plus pounds, so she's got a long way to go,
but certainly, if she's gaining 20,
20-something pounds every few months,
she's gonna get there pretty quick, so.
Oh my god, that's awesome.
- That tells me that we need to work on getting this door.
- Yeah, we've gotta - Right? (laughs)
- work on a bigger enclosure and get the door.
So she can walk out. - Right.
- 'Cause lifting her is definitely, it's a lot heavier.
You're doing so good, girl, love you.
Do we have any animal tragedies today?
- No tragedies, everything pretty boring
at the house. (Brian speaking over him)
No.
- [Brian] No water leaks?
- No, nothing exciting, just another--
- [Brian] How was that podcast, man, was it a lot of fun?
- Dude, I loved it.
I thought it was really good.
There were so many positive comments
with people commenting on the, you know,
chat and stuff like that.
I had a really good time.
I can't wait to do it again.
- It's awesome, I mean, definitely was a lot of fun.
You were really good there, you were great.
If you guys didn't see that podcast,
I'll put a link in the description.
Definitely go subscribe to that channel,
as well as check out Noah and Eric.
Probably be every Friday night within,
you know, with some exceptions, I'm sure.
And that's actually gonna be called
"Choices with Noah and Eric,"
and, of course, "Checking In," same channel,
on Wednesdays with the family and guests
and stuff like that, so definitely go pay that some love.
I cannot wait to get Al Mochino next door.
He is such an amazing animal.
Of course, he's an albino and a mocha,
that's why they call them mochinos.
And, I tell you, he's just got such a great disposition.
I come down and mess with him a lot,
but I can't wait until he's over there.
So everyone can hold him all the time.
I think most weekends, we bring him over at least one night,
just because he's so awesome.
Within the next six, seven weeks, we'll be ready to go
and open up and he'll be over there full time.
I know Lori gets a little crazy about having so many retics,
but to be honest with you,
retics are awesome and people love them.
I mean, I get her idea, the fact that diversity,
but we still have a lot of diversity,
and I love reticulated pythons.
Oh, and by the way, about open,
right now we're shooting for the second week of March
to be the kind of grand reopening of the new place.
I'll make an official announcement on that,
but if you're starting to plan to come out,
I'd love to have you.
We'll have a big party and stuff like that.
Definitely looking for the second week of March.
Looking through all the little racer snakes that we have,
like I do a lot,
and this one really jumped out at me.
This is actually an anery that's actually a strawberry.
So the strawberry gene is kind of like a hypo-ish gene,
but it's not quite the same as a normal hypo,
and put together, this thing looks really cool.
I love just kind of how the pink
is really coming through it, real heavy definition.
Of course this is an Okatee bloodline too,
so you have those really heavy black saddles
and stuff like that, so,
I don't know, I just had to show you guys
'cause I thought it was super cool.
I've got a tour in the house, how are you guys?
I'm sorry, what's your name again?
- My name's June. - June, hi.
- This is my daughter Hope. - Hi.
- [Brian] Hi, Hope, June and Hope.
- We're here from Memphis.
- [Brian] Memphis, Tennessee.
I love the Salt Life shirt, thank you for supporting me.
- Absolutely. - Appreciate it.
We're gonna have a good time.
You wanna go get things started?
- Yes, we do. - All right, let's do it.
(chill music)
(somber music)
Guys, I want just a little serious time with you right now,
because a pretty crazy event happened
in the reptile world, now and it started a few years ago,
that affected so many people, including myself,
and it started with a friend of mine, Ben Renick,
who was a reptile breeder.
A really good guy,
and I'm not saying that because he passed away,
but he really was a good guy.
I mean, he, in the reptile world, often times,
there's a lot of issues,
and there's backstabbing, and this and that,
and Ben was not only a guy
that took unbelievable care of his animals,
and had incredible animals,
but also was just a great person.
You'd never hear him say anything bad about people.
He's just a good guy.
Unfortunately, a few years ago,
he was shot dead in his facility,
and the reptile community,
I was so proud to be a part of,
really galvanized and raised funds
and got behind his family for the loss,
and we all scratched our head like
how could this happen to such a nice guy?
What was going on?
And for the last few years,
we also were all confused that there were no arrests.
There was no apparent leads.
Up until just recently, even the police had said
that they had no leads.
They weren't sure who had killed him.
Unfortunately, in the last few days,
we found another unbelievably tragic thing,
that it was allegedly his wife that actually murdered him,
and it really hit me hard, guys.
I mean, like, it's like, you know, I knew both of them.
They were both my friends,
and I felt so bad for her when it happened.
I thought, oh my god, they were such a great couple.
And again, people have raised money and donated
lots and lots of money to her,
and to the kids, too, which was important.
But to think now that she was behind it, allegedly,
I mean, I'm pretty sure she was from the police reports.
It's just so shocking, and I just had to talk about it
because it really has affected me personally.
Of course, starting with the loss of Ben a few years ago,
it was so tragic, and such a smash that that could happen.
But then, now to hear what the reasoning behind it,
and apparently he was gonna leave her,
and she was worried about money and the kids,
so instead of just trying to make a new life for herself,
she decided to take a life.
A really great life, at that.
And the reptile community lost an amazing person
when that happened,
and it's just so tragic,
and I just needed to talk to you guys about it.
And to be honest with you,
I don't wanna have a video like this
where I'm talking to you about this,
and turn it into where I'm making money with AdSense,
and stuff like that,
so I really want to donate all the proceeds of this video,
anything I make on this video, I'd like to donate it.
I'm not sure if I should donate it to USARK,
the United States Association of Reptile Keepers,
because I know Ben was a big part of that.
I certainly support them.
Or if there should be another charity.
I don't know what charity.
If you guys have any ideas, let me know in the comments,
and I'll make a donation for anything
that we potentially make off this video to that charity,
'cause, again, I don't want a tragedy like this
to ever, you know, make money for me.
So I don't want you guys to think.
I just needed to get this off my chest.
Really, I feel horrible for his children,
and the rest of his family,
that they had to go through this.
It's just wild.
You know, again, maybe in the comments
you guys can let me know how you feel,
if you've heard about this.
I'll put a link in the description to all the information.
You guys can read up,
and I don't know if we can do anything else, as a community,
to help the family.
So let me know, because again,
this is near and dear to my heart,
and it's really affected me.
(somber music)
I've talked about the scaleless rat snakes,
and really even corn snakes,
but in particular, the scaleless Texas rats,
and the kind of polymorphism,
which is just a fancy name for variability of them.
You know, they all look completely different.
I wanna show you a handful that we're raising up
that are radically different.
Of course, this one's cool.
It's got a little bit of remnant scalation going on,
a little bit of a pink color to it,
and again, they'll go from pink to red to,
you can see this one's, like, orange,
but has quite a bit of scalation.
Lots of remnant scales throughout,
but it's more of an orange and black animal,
which is really cool.
But look at how scaleless the head is, right there.
It's really wild how you get
just the kind of extra eyeballs that look like it's on top,
but the rest of the head is scaled.
And that's what's so neat about them,
is that every one is so different.
Again, another one.
This one has a kind of translucent nose to it.
It's a kind of much more faded gray-looking snake.
You don't have that high, rich contrast in them,
and that's what's cool
is every one looks a little bit different,
as a baby, and then, as they get bigger,
they even get more interesting.
Look at this one here.
Woo-hoo, doggy!
That is a ripper right there!
I mean, it's beautiful, reds, blacks.
Got the white freckles on it.
I mean, this is the ones that I like the best, to be honest.
Well, you know, I like them all, to be honest with you.
But those are really cool.
And then take a look at this crazy monkey right here.
This one, of course,
it's got all of this pied marking in it.
White coming through, like all crazy, and again,
that's why I like working with scaleless rat snakes,
is that you can get so much variety from the same clutch.
Although you can breed for specific things, too,
if you wanna go with red ones or orange ones or yellow ones,
you can actually polymorphically breed for them.
Sometimes you get some other variation in the clutches,
but still, nevertheless,
that's why I love scaleless rats so much.
I absolutely love these giant leaf-tailed geckos,
the uroplatus fimbriatus.
They're incredible,
and it's been such a pleasure working with these guys,
and I've had a handful of clutches of eggs.
She typically lays one egg at a time,
and unfortunately, I've never had one that has been fertile.
Now what I've heard is, often times,
they need a little higher calcium
in order to actually calcify the egg,
and that may be our issue.
So what we're gonna do is
we're gonna actually offer these guys snails.
I guess that's the way to get them actual calcium.
I guess with the shell, or something like that.
Regardless, we're gonna go ahead and get that
as soon as I get back from Texas,
and hopefully, one day,
we can produce some of these guys
'cause I'm telling you what
it's definitely on my bucket list of animals.
If I ever hatched out a little baby giant leaf-tailed gecko,
I think I would faint.
Work is continuing on, as you can see,
they're doing some electrical work here.
Now while I'm gone, there's gonna be a lot of things
happening over here, as well.
Lori actually has to paint these walls
after everything gets sanded,
then they're gonna come in and actually do the drop ceiling.
That's gonna make a huge difference.
So paint, drop ceiling, this place is gonna be looking
a completely different place when I get back,
because they're gonna have doors on it,
the windows will be in, all that type of stuff.
So that's pretty exciting.
And then, right after I get back,
like two days after I get back,
we're gonna be doing the floor.
Once the floor and the walls are painted and all that stuff,
it's gonna look good, and really,
just a little bit of finished electrical
and we're gonna be waiting for install day,
which, of course, is February 10th.
Now, sorry, it was the 3rd, now it's pushed to the 10th.
So it's gonna be pretty cool.
So I'm bummed that I'm leaving 'cause I love to see
this type of progress,
but at the same time, it's gonna be awesome to get back,
and Lori and Noah will kind of show you guys
what's going on while we're down in Texas.
Lori, what do you got going on?
- Adding more geckos to the site.
- [Brian] So I'm gonna get out of here in just a little bit.
- Okay.
- [Brian] Got a lot going on, so, paint Monday/Tuesday,
then Wednesday we've got ceiling going in.
A lot of moving parts, so.
I know, I have complete faith that you'll be fine.
- Mm-hmm.
- [Brian] I have trust in you.
So you gonna be able to keep me posted?
- Yes, I will keep you posted.
I am very capable of getting everything done,
like I always do.
- [Brian] I know you are.
- I don't need you to give me the list. (laughs)
- [Brian] All right, well good.
Well, definitely, film too, okay?
(sighs)
- [Brian] I wanna, send me clips.
So people know what's going on, all right?
It's gonna be fine. - All right.
- [Brian] Okay, all right, I'm gonna get on the run
in a few minutes, all right?
- All right, 'bye. - All right, see ya.
I always have to say goodbye to my girl Belly.
Belly, I'm gonna miss you so much.
Every time I ever leave, I always say goodbye to her,
and when I get back, I say hello to her.
'Cause she's just amazing.
I'm gonna miss you, baby.
You gonna be good when I'm gone?
You're such a good girl.
Thank you, baby girl.
See ya soon.
All right, guys, ready to open up at the Reptarium.
You guys ready?
- Ready to go. - Yeah, ready!
- [Brian] Okay, let's do this.
Hey guys, how are you?
Hi, welcome, come on in, guys!
You guys know that I hate not hanging out here
at the Reptarium,
'cause I have such a good time when we're open,
but unfortunately, I have no choice but to hit the road,
'cause we have to be in Texas.
It's a long drive, 18, 20 hours, something like that.
We're gonna try to get
about six or seven hours down tonight.
So let's just go ahead, say our goodbyes, and hit the road.
(chill music)
All right, guys, we made it to the hotel room.
We're gonna get a little bit of sleep tonight,
and then we will start tomorrow
and head to Universal Rock,
and then get a bang on all the bells for the Reptarium.
It's gonna be amazing!
I hope that you have a good night.
If you enjoyed this video, can you do me a favor?
Subscribe to our podcast channel, right over here.
Here is a playlist of vlogs that you can run through.
Over here, you can subscribe to the vlog channel.
Can you turn the post notification on
for these two, right here?
Have a wonderful day, be kind to someone,
and I promise, I'll see you guys tomorrow.