(soft music)
- Hey, good morning everybody.
And welcome to the vlog.
We are about to go into the dragon's den.
That's right, the tree dragon, Baby Kush.
Now what I'm going to try to do
is a little bit more socialization today.
I need to start off right off the bat.
I'm going to go ahead, give him one piece of chicken.
There you go.
Now I'm going to walk in.
I'm going to try to get a little bit close to him, you know,
so that he knows that I'm right here, right up next to him.
And he understands, you're going to get some more food.
But this time, remember last time I tried to get my hand
like super close.
(soft music)
And what I'm going to try to do this next trick,
so I'm going to actually do it without tongs.
I'm going to just hold like this.
Oh, look at that.
There you go.
I'm going to even try to pat it just a little bit.
It's okay Baby Kush. It's all right.
See. We're good. We're good. We're good.
We're okay.
And that's what I wanted to do.
See, I want him to understand that I'm not,
and it is intimidating I'm not going to lie.
Oh, just take it.
Gentle, gentle, gentle, gentle, gentle.
There you go.
(sighs loudly) I tell you what,
and again, just kind of just touch
just right underneath the chin.
It's okay, Baby Kush. I'm right here.
See, we're trying to get to a point
where we have this kind of interaction,
pushing the envelope just a little bit
so that he understands it's about time
that we start to touch him and take him out
and start to actually interact with him.
You know, we spend a lot of time getting to the point
where he's comfortable.
Before, when you came in, he would literally run away
right away, right now. Bam, he'd be gone.
But now he's actually able to stand here.
I can get super close,
and I'm just going to kind of keep my hand over here.
His eye is right on me.
He knows what's going on.
And I'll even put my hand over here,
just to make sure he understands hey, I'm not food.
He smells. He knows I'm not food. He understands that.
You're a good Baby Kush.
Good job. Good job.
It's no more, no more food. No more food.
Okay. That's all right.
And again, we want to just kind of keep the boundaries
to the point where we're comfortable with him,
but at the same time he understands I'm not food. Right?
I'm going to let him smell me.
I'm going to get this close so I can get with him.
See. There's no food.
Good job Baby Kush.
Can I touch you?
No, that's okay.
It's all right.
And I'm just reading this animal as best I can.
I want him to smell the difference between me and food.
There you go. See.
There you go, Baby Kush.
It's all right. We're good.
We're all right.
Yep. No food, no food.
They're such smart animals.
He knows the difference between food and not food. Right?
And so I'm going to let him kind of advanced towards me.
And then when he backs up,
I'm just going to touch him just a little bit.
There you go.
And that's it.
I think that was a really great kind of interaction.
And if we can continue to push on that each time,
it won't be long before I could probably lift him up
and he's going to actually allow me to do that.
But this was really good.
He's held his ground, he wasn't afraid
and everything worked out good.
And Hey, I've got all my fingers.
All right guys. Nothing can go wrong with this.
- Your sons. Both of us.
- We've got Jay the entertainer, my son,
and of course Noah that can't even open the cage.
- I can't even open the cage. The designs are flawed.
(all laugh)
- They're going to feed Salt and Pepper.
And this is going to be on Noah's vlog as well.
He's doing a bunch of feeding with a bunch of stuff today.
So check out Noah's vlog.
I'll put a link in the description.
In the meantime, you ready?
- I've never even done this.
- [Brian] What?
- Are we hand feeding it?
- [Brian] Are you hand feeding... You don't even have tongs?
- Oh my God. - We're just going to do it.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh.
You guys are... There's no way those small pieces.
- These are little pieces, yeah?
- That's a good piece right there.
- Oh yeah. Look it, look it.
- Yeah I got a little (indistinct)
Oh my Gosh. Look at these.
All right. You ready?
(Jay flaps lips)
- [Brian] Well you got to get close. Get up to the...
(Jay flaps lips)
Go ahead. Go ahead.
(Jay flaps lips)
Got to get up there.
- Oh! (giggles)
- [Brian] Oh my God Jay. You guys are terrible.
Who let You guys do this?
- We're scared.
- Whoa, Whoa, Whoa.
- [Brian] Did you get one?
- [Noah] Yeah that was a good one.
(Jay flaps lips)
Oh!
- [Jay] Get it Noah, get it Noah.
- [Brian] Don't let it drop. Don't let it drop.
Don't let it drop.
(Jay laughs)
Here. Give me a second.
Pull.
- [Jay] Good thing we have a professional here.
(all laugh)
(Noah flaps lips)
- [Noah] No, no, no.
Whoa! Whoa!
Go up, go up. Whoa!
- [Jay] Oh my God.
- [Noah] How many more (indistinct) chicken.
- [Jay] We got to get that piece of chicken.
So pick Salt up and then I'll get the chicken.
- No way.
- Yeah just do it. Just pick her up.
- [Noah] Oh, she's going to get... Don't let her fall.
Don't let her fall. Don't let her fall.
- [Jay] Bro, you got to just do it.
She's not going to bite you. I promise.
(Noah screams)
(all laugh)
- [Brian] You guys are just, you guys are crazy.
Noah spent 24 hours in here. He knows this cage well.
- [Jay] He does.
- [Brian] Oh, here she comes.
(Jay flaps lips)
Here she comes.
(Jay flaps lips)
(Jay laughs)
Probably went underneath the log now.
(all scream)
(all laugh)
- [Noah] Chill out.
- [Jay] I thought that was your girl.
(Noah screams)
- Yeah. So if you guys want to see the entire thing,
go ahead and check out Noah's vlog, Absolute Mayhem.
Just like I expected.
This is still an intimidating animal of course,
my black-throated monitor.
Come on little monkey. Come on.
Definitely not like Baby Kush
but still an animal that...
Come on. Want some food?
There you go, buddy.
(laughs) When he gets bigger, this one's going to be docile.
I'm telling you.
I know a lot of people that have been watching me
kind of struggle with my black-throated monitor,
probably don't believe the fact
that it's going to be tame one day
but I promise you when it gets bigger,
it's going to be an absolutely amazing animal
and it's going to be super, super good.
Everyone's going to be able to handle it and mess with it.
But as a baby, it's just a little bit feisty.
Again. It's a little animal in a very big world
and it has to have that big attitude
to stay happy and healthy.
Come on, buddy. You want one more?
Come on.
He is crushing food and doing so well.
There you go, buddy.
(laughs) I love this guy.
Again, monitor feeding is always one of my favorite days
just because they're so entertaining
and you can see them thinking, right?
You know, it's not like they're just jumping after food,
they're literally thinking about it before they do it.
And you can see how he'll even like kind of
tilt his head a little bit.
Just a very unique animal.
See how he's like he's side eyeing it right now
trying to decide, does he want another piece?
Doesn't he want another piece?
What am I doing?
You can see right there, he comes in he's like,
okay, I'm going to take it.
There it goes.
What an awesome animal.
I tell you what man, monitor lizards are amazing.
It's hard to believe that for the majority of my career
I was just a snake guy and I didn't keep any lizards at all.
And then I started keeping geckos
and then ultimately monitor lizards
and all this other stuff.
And I tell you what, even though I was a snake guy at heart,
man, I have fallen in love with lizards
just because I think their personalities are so amazing.
Here we go, buddy.
One last piece, come on, come on.
You can do it. There you go.
You can just read him when he turns from like,
I'm not sure.
Okay, I'm going to eat.
So that was a good meal for him.
You guys know what I'm about to tell you.
That's right.
Bella Bananas Merch is available right now.
You can get hoodies just like this one, different colors,
you can get shirts, you can get mugs,
you can get all kinds of different stuff.
Regardless, they're only going to be available
for a short time as you can see.
You guys know this was our most popular drop
and it was in high demand to come back.
So that's right.
Link in the description.
Go get them before they're gone.
I feed my big anacondas all the time.
And I know you guys ask about Verdi all the time.
So obviously Verdi is out and about
looking like she wants to dig, take a little meal.
There you go sweetheart.
Oh man.
Tell you what, she's looking good.
So we'll be out here get a little munch.
Going to try to feed the emerald tree boa as well.
So Carly, emerald tree boa actually eats fresh dead food.
So it just took it.
And it's pretty amazing to see the teeth on this guy
when they actually eat,
I mean, definitely an unbelievable animal.
It's really an animal that was one of my first loves
when it came to snakes.
You know, when I was really young
I used to actually have a picture of an emerald tree boa.
Used to stare at it for hours and hours and hours.
So definitely so excited that now we have a couple of them
in our collection, and Carl is pretty awesome.
Emerald tree boas literally have the largest teeth
of any non-venomous snake you can see,
as Carl is actually going back
and undulating those giant teeth.
Now they will actually shed their teeth as well
from time to time and we do sometimes find a little tooth.
As a matter of fact, I can see one in the cage right now
and I'll actually pull that out when Carl is done
to show you guys, but it's pretty amazing.
Now I've never been bitten by a big emerald tree boa,
but I was actually witness to a few people
getting attacked by them.
And let me tell what, I've been bit by a lot of snakes.
I don't want to get bit by a tooth like that
in an emerald tree boa, but what an amazing animal, right?
This is such a cool thing to actually witness.
You can literally see right on the top
of this poop right here. It's a little bit gross.
I'm going to take it out,
but that is a tooth right there from an emerald tree boa.
I mean, how crazy is that?
I mean, that is one long dagger of a tooth.
You can imagine getting bitten by that animal
and that tooth just going really baring right into it.
It's like a little nail.
I mean, that is absolutely incredible.
And that's what happens, is they shed their teeth out
you know, through the course of their lifetime
they're going to shed those teeth a handful of time
and you typically will find them in the actual scat or poop.
Right?
I know it's kind of gross and it doesn't smell real good
to be totally honest with you.
But nevertheless, that is really an amazing thing.
That's something that we're going to have to maybe
make a little piece of jewelry out of or something like that
and put this as a corner piece, because that is amazing.
I mean, it's hard to believe
that a non-venomous snake would have a tooth that big.
I mean, that thing is incredible.
Nevertheless, look at how beautiful Carl is.
Good meal for him. He looks amazing
and I'm absolutely loving this emerald tree boa.
(soft music)
Today is actually a super exciting day down here
in the new colubrid room.
This is the very first time
that this room has ever been fed.
So Lori is actually going to be the feeder.
Remember the other day when I said,
I didn't know who was feeding or breeding
the colubrids this year,
'cause no one had really been assigned to it.
Lori did it last year.
Well, she's going to feed at least the first meal down here.
Don't know if she's going to continue on past today,
but she's definitely going to be doing a lot of the breeding
and then she'll be working with Caleb
to kind of tie everything together.
But nevertheless, exciting because the first feeding happens
means that the season is underway.
Before you know it guys,
we're going to be getting eggs and babies down here.
All right. Monitor feeding continues.
Habitsuku come on girl. Come on, come on.
There he goes.
Look, look, look, look, look.
Oh, she is excited today.
Oh my gosh.
Up here. Up here. Up here.
Good girl.
And a lot of times we'll actually take her off.
Don't follow the ball.
A lot of times we'll take her out of the cage to feed,
but today...
Whoa! That was close.
Up here.
Oh, stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.
Okay. Okay. Nope.
(sighs) Tell you what, she is just fired up today.
Okay. You stay in the cage, in the cage, in the cage.
(gasps loudly) I tell you what man, It's crazy.
She is on fire.
I'm just going to try to shovel
as much food into her as I can.
Okay. That's that's your food allotment for the day girl.
She sees that blue ball and she just wants to go.
Hide the blue ball.
hide the blue ball.
Okay Habitsuku.
(screams) Tell you what, I think she misses Bruce.
She's getting a little cranky.
- Another new season begins with the colubrids.
Today is the first day that we're actually feeding them.
We'll see how it goes.
Ah, 50-50 usually with the first meals,
but starting next week they'll get offered twice a week
and they start picking up after a few days.
This is it.
Guess I'm doing this again right now.
We'll see how it goes, but I'm excited to see
what this new year brings.
(soft music)
There it goes. First feeding in the books.
So now what I've got to do, is check them tomorrow.
See who fed.
And this is the beginning
of the latest and greatest breeding season
so fingers crossed.
- So happy to be making progress with Baby Kush. You know.
And the truth is is that, it's little steps like that
that really start going.
That's the closest that we've been able to get
with the taking food right out of our hands
and touching and stuff like that.
So trust me, it's accelerated now.
We're going to get this thing going as quickly as we can.
When Bruce comes back, he's going to be able to finish
the work that I'm getting going here
and it's going to be absolutely amazing.
Hope that you enjoyed today's video.
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Have an absolutely wonderful day.
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