- Good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is amazing.
I have a little bit of an issue
that I have to solve here this morning.
The good news is we had some morning gecko eggs,
actually two sets of them.
There's actually two females in here
and they are absolutely adorable.
And of course these are the ones that are parthenogenesis
so they don't have males,
the entire species is nothing but females,
and they lay fertile eggs
that hatch out female wise, so it's really cool.
Now the eggs actually adhere to whatever they lay it to.
There in lies the problem.
One set of eggs is way up here in the corner,
the problem is, is that one of the eggs is on this side,
the other egg is on the lid and they're adhered together.
I can't take the lid off because if I take the lid off
I'm gonna crack the eggs.
The eggs are actually hard unlike snake eggs.
And then the other one happened to lay eggs right here
on the lid that actually opens up, the little trap door.
So now I have an issue.
I can't take the lid off, I can't open the lid.
These guys are gonna take a month and a half
to two months to hatch, so obviously
I've gotta feed these guys, I've gotta take care of 'em,
I've gotta mist them, stuff like that.
So, now my dilemma is how do I get them outta here
and turn this basically just into an incubator,
remove the adults without hurting the eggs
and I'll have to sub.
So, the first thing I'm gonna do
is figure out the solution here,
which I think is just gonna be cutting this hole like this
and somehow getting the geckos out,
but I have to set up a new tank for them
that won't have the same issue down the road.
(air whooshing)
First thing we're gonna do is actually
set up the new tank for the morning geckos,
this should be good.
We'll get a little bit of egg laying tubes in here, too,
that we'll add in the next week or two.
But at least there shouldn't be anything here
where they lay their eggs where we can't actually
open the cage up like what just happened.
So I'm just gonna foam the back of this
backdrop really quick.
(upbeat music)
And this is just gonna adhere it
to the back of the actual tank here,
and once it dries we'll go back in
and foam it up just a little bit more.
I just wanna get a pretty good beat on it here.
(water running)
I just push that here and now what I'll do
is I'll just take some shims and just measure
where I want where they'll kinda fit in there,
where I can just push 'em like this, kinda wedge 'em.
(upbeat music)
All right so we're gonna let that dry
for probably an hour, hour and a half.
We'll go through and seam the same thing with that foam,
we'll seam that up a little bit, then we can set it up,
and in the meantime we're gonna try to figure out
how to get these geckos outta here.
Just a quick recap for those of you guys
that watched yesterday, we did the flooring, right?
These are the two options that we're gonna go with.
This is smooth and now it's completely dry,
and this has a little bit of texture, some sand in it.
I love the way the smooth one looks, it looks so nice,
but that is gonna be a nightmare to keep clean
and the animals are gonna hate it,
and if it gets wet people are gonna slip like crazy.
It looks like ice over here,
so we're definitely gonna go with this one,
it's really beautiful,
got a little bit of texture to it,
I think it's gonna look good.
So here after we get done with the walls
and get the drop ceiling up,
probably about a week and a half from now
we'll have them grind this floor out,
epoxy it up, so this is the winner.
All right guys, just a little real time with you guys,
I just wanna recap what we've got going on,
what we are gonna continue having going on
with the actual expansion here.
Obviously we came in, we tore all the walls out,
which was a job in itself.
then cleanup was even a bigger job,
'cause we have to throw it all away.
Once that was all done and we kinda got the plans together,
we have to pull permits of course,
and then we started building the rough walls,
and then after that we actually knocked out the wall
that connects the two buildings
and now we have the rough electric in,
waiting on inspections before we can move onto the next part
which is gonna be sheet rocking it, finish electrical,
drop ceiling, HVAC, which is heating and cooling
has to come in, they have to get their permit,
pull that, get that done.
Then we actually head down to Texas
in nine days I believe it is, to finish the last enclosures.
I think there's only like three enclosures.
We've got the iguana enclosure, Salt and Pepper's,
the finish on that one, and then of course
the anaconda that we're gonna build
which is gonna be absolutely ridiculous.
Then, February 3rd is the install day which by the way,
if anyone can help out on February 3rd,
help us bring stuff in, set stuff up, we need 20, 25 people.
We already have some people,
but if you are interested, let me know.
Info@bhbreptiles.com, let me know,
would love to have your help,
we really, really appreciate it.
Once the install is in, then it's just really
a matter of like kinda getting everything patched up,
make sure all the heating, thermostats, lighting,
UV, all that stuff is set, and then put animals in.
And then that's kind of an interesting thing too,
and I actually even have to ask you guys a question,
and this may get me in trouble,
but I was offered a really large reticulated python.
I mean, literally bigger than Lucy by about a foot
and about 40 pounds.
I mean, so really big.
Still in very good shape, 12, 13 years old.
It's a friend of mine, I've actually seen the animal
and actually even played with it before.
So, it's a 21 foot snake that's 240 pounds, pretty tame.
You know, so she doesn't have the attitude of Lucy,
so I'm thinking,
do I add a big snake like that into The Reptarium?
We have the cages now that we could actually do it,
but I'm trying to think, you know, number one,
it's in California,
so I gotta get it all the way here from California,
and Lori may kill me on that, I don't know,
but I wanna have a giant snake
that we can take out and let people hold.
I mean, we have Daisy now, 100% sure,
but this is even bigger, more impressive,
let me know in the comments.
Do you think I should do that?
And then I have to just kinda decide
what other animals beyond what we already have
and what we already have lined up.
There's still a lot of work, guys,
I mean there really is,
but it's gettin' close, it's gonna be pretty amazing.
Send those positive vibes guys,
'cause I have a lot on my plate
and a lot has to fall into place to make this thing work.
(air whooshing)
- I don't believe them, I think they're putting me off.
- Why, what are they tellin' you now?
- [Brian] Tell us what your tramp stamp is.
- Oh yeah, no, it's a dolphin.
- No, I don't care,
show me, - It's tribal.
I don't have one. - There we go.
- I don't have one.
(everyone laughing)
- This is a pretty interesting animal,
I'm sure I've never had it on the vlog
'cause it has a weird story behind it.
We actually were sold this as a leucistic corn snake.
Obviously it's got some weird pattern.
My presumption is that at some point
someone bred a leucistic Texas rat into a corn snake
because it just looks a little bit bigger
than a normal corn,
the head structure's a little bit different,
definitely looks like a corn snake
but at the same time, I think there's a little rat,
that's why we've never really bred it.
Even when I bought it as a baby I had my doubts,
and that's one of the things
that is a problem with hybridization, right?
I'm not against producing hybrids,
but when people don't represent hybrids properly,
if someone were to buy this and really thought
it was a pure corn snake like we did, and then bred it
and produced corn snakes that weren't really pure,
it kinda muddies things up a little bit.
In the grand scheme of things,
everything is captive anyways, but I really wanna be sure
what the genetics are in the actual species
that I'm breeding, right?
I'm pretty sure this probably has Texas rat in it,
but nevertheless, really cool snake,
probably just be a pet because I'll probably
never produce anything from it,
but hopefully one day someone will actually produce
a pure leucistic corn snake.
It's weird that they haven't already
with the thousands and millions of corn snakes
that are produced all the time.
It's pretty crazy that there's never been a leucistic.
(air whooshing)
Take Ace out here, the D'Albertis python,
and you guys are gonna see
why I'm gonna take it out in a minute,
but it gets a little bit cranky when he's in his cage,
so I've gotta somehow just get him to know
that I'm not food.
See, oh, little cranky.
But once he knows I'm not food and he's all right,
he usually gets pretty good.
So we're gonna take him out.
And the reason I'm taking him out,
and I keep saying him 'cause to be honest with you,
I don't know the sex of this animal.
I got it from a friend of mine that was it's pet
and I love it to death, and I don't know
if it's a male or a female.
He said he wasn't sure either.
Well, Kevin, my friend over at NERD,
of course got the male albino, the T Positive albino,
and he asked me to sex Ace out to see if it was a girl
so maybe we could breed Ace to the albino,
and produce some heterozygous animals.
Now thankfully enough, at this size you can usually
avert the hemipenis and see what they are,
and I tell you what,
I am pretty sure,
and I'm just gonna get a little better grip here,
but I'm just gonna go ahead and just get
a little bit better shot and guess what guys?
This is definitely a girl!
So Ace, the male D'Albertis is a female D'Albertis python,
which means I can talk to Kevin and send this out
and have Kevin breed her and hopefully
get some baby heterozygous D'Albertis pythons.
Oh my gosh.
Now I'm gonna be bummed out 'cause I love having Ace here,
so I wouldn't send it out for permanent,
maybe just for one breeding season,
get her back maybe this summer.
So, there you have it, Ace, you are a girl.
(air whooshing)
The foam's all sealed up here and completely in.
Now what I'm gonna do is just seal all the edges
with this before we move on,
'cause these geckos are really small.
If they get behind the backdrop I'm in trouble,
I gotta rip the whole backdrop off.
Don't want that to happen, so I'm just gonna go ahead
and just foam this up and then we'll kinda
fix it up a little bit later.
(upbeat music)
The thing that's nice is even if it doesn't look perfect,
you can go back up and touch it later with a silicone
and the cement dust and like that, so again,
we'll let this dry for another hour or two
before we start fixturing out.
Then I've gotta somehow figure out
how to get those geckos out of there.
Last weeks podcast was one of the funnest things
that I've done.
I tell you what, I didn't know how I would like it,
so much fun, I hope that you guys enjoyed,
it's called "Checking In."
Put a link in the description, go show it some love.
Actually this Wednesday, we have Max Strong.
If you guys don't know Max, he's a guy on Instagram,
really cool dude, plays with lions and hyenas
and just an all around awesome guy,
got a big following on Instagram,
I'll put a link in the description then.
So again, tune in Wednesday, five, six,
something in that range we'll go on
and we'll just be on for an hour,
sometimes maybe even two hours, who knows.
Live chat, the whole shot.
So definitely show that some love.
I can not wait to do this podcast.
(air whooshing)
- Setting up this little cage here for the morning geckos.
This'll still probably be a temporary set up for them,
I ultimately wanna get them in a bigger cage
that's bioactive, but for now we're just gonna do this
so we can get 'em out of the little prison they created.
(upbeat music)
All right, so that's it!
Pretty temporary set up,
so it's not very like involved or anything,
but they'll be happy in it.
I put some, like a good layer of leaves down there.
I've noticed that they like to hide in the leaves a lot,
especially when it starts to dry out during the day.
I think they'll be really happy in there.
(air whooshing)
- All right, so the idea is to take this little Dremel
and actually very carefully cut a window out here
that Jessica, and I did say Jessica,
'cause I'm not gonna do it, get 'em out
'cause I'll let 'em loose, Jessica, you know that.
(Jessica laughs)
They'll be all over the place.
And we're gonna have to just slowly take 'em out.
Then I can put the window back, tape it up,
when the babies actually hatch,
I'll be able to then take them out
and get rid of this cage forever,
and hopefully when they lay eggs in this one,
it'll be better.
So, let's hope this works out, ready?
(Dremel whirring)
What if I mess this up?
(Dremel whirring)
(upbeat music)
Okay, so here we go.
I can now take this out, hopefully.
And somehow we've gotta try to get the geckos from in there.
You think you'll be able to do it?
- Yeah, probably.
Just gotta keep them towards the opening.
You okay?
- I don't know, I don't, I can't,
I'm sure I'm not gonna do it any better than you.
(Jessica laughing)
- [Jessica] Like get it to come out the hole.
(water running)
- There it goes.
Get these guys back in here.
Not as easy as we expected.
- [Jessica] There we go.
- [Brian] There's your new cage buddy.
- [Man] There's one!
- [Female] There's one.
- One more to go!
- [Man] Don't do it, Brian!
- No I'm not going to, I'm just gonna take out this out.
- [Jessica] Make it a little easier.
- Make it a little easier.
- [Man] All right, Jessica, number two, let's do it!
- [Jessica] It may have gone in the tube.
- [Brian] If it's in the tube, that's even better, right?
- Yeah, just pull it out. - Just take
the tube right out.
- Yeah it is. - [Woman] She is.
- [Jessica] Can you see him there?
- [Female] Yep (laughs).
- All right, so there's just the two, right?
- Yep, just two.
- All right.
(water splashing)
There's water in the tank there.
There she goes!
For now I'll just put this back on,
and I'll just tape it up to where it stays on there.
(everybody laughing)
And then when the eggs hatch,
we can take the lid off and get the babies out
and stuff like that.
So I know it's a disaster but I think it all--
- Probably don't try this at home, maybe?
- Yeah, probably not, okay.
We did the best we could do.
In the comments, let me know how horrible we were,
(Jessica laughs)
and if you had other ideas that we could've done this with
saving the eggs and getting everything,
I'm sure the dremel wasn't the best idea,
but hey it all worked out.
The geckos are fine.
- Everything's good, so I mean, whatever.
- Hey it worked, all right, so there we are.
We'll keep you updated when these babies hatch.
(upbeat music)
All right guys, so it's all taped up.
It wasn't my best work, I gotta be honest with you,
but hey, hopefully these eggs will hatch.
The adult females are in their own new habitat
that I think is much better, also very interesting looking.
And that concludes today's video.
If you enjoyed this, you can do me a favor
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Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Be kind to someone, and I promise,
I'll see you guys tomorrow.