- Oh my gosh, guys, you'll never guess what's going on.
Look at this, some more mangroves are hatching.
Gonna be alright?
- I just need some pizza.
- (laughs) alright, I'll get you some pizza.
(electronic music)
(explosion)
Hey, good morning everybody, and welcome to the vlog.
You know it's been a while since I've kinda talked
about some of the things happening over here at BHB
and the fact that I started my career
for the first 20-something years
as really just a reptile breeder
and then over the last several years
I've kinda evolved into some different things
with education, with the Reptarium, with YouTube
and all that other stuff,
so I figured I'd go back to my roots
for you guys today and talk about snake breeding
for some of these people that are like
'What does Brian do?'
Or 'Hey, I might want to try to breed snakes',
because I'll tell you what,
it is an absolutely incredible experience
and it's certainly afforded me so many things in life.
So I'm going to do the best I can do
to give you guys a little bit of a brief summary
of how to breed snakes.
I mean, I'm not gonna really teach you everything
but I'm going to give you the overview if that makes sense.
This happens to be a snow Texas rat snake,
which is an albino and anerythristic,
which are both double recessive mutations,
and of course, a Texas rat snake,
and this is what, of course,
would be called a colubrid snake,
that falls into the category like corns,
kings, rats, milks, gophers and a couple other things,
and regardless I'll talk about how I breed those guys.
So it's a pretty crazy day,
Noah is actually getting his first tattoo
- What is that?
- [Brian] And this is what you're getting, right?
- No, what is that? (laughing)
- That's not what you're getting?
- No, I don't want that!
(laughing) Is that a cat crab?
- It's my tattoo, it's my tattoo, it's my tattoo.
No! (laughing)
- Are you nervous at all?
- No, I'm actually excited, I'm not nervous at all.
- [Brian] Oh, get out of here, really?
- Yeah - [Brian] Are you serious?
- Uh huh. - Yeah.
- [Brian] That is so sick.
- I know, it is sweet, I like it.
I like it a lot.
- [Brian] Are you sure you like it?
- No, yeah, 100 percent, I really like it.
- Oh my gosh - [Brian] Yeah man.
- It's sweet, I like it.
- Well, I think I want that tattoo, are you kidding me?
- Well, you don't have any more room, you got a platypus.
- Oh my gosh, that's so sick. - Yeah, it is sweet.
- Let's keep in mind that this isn't the only way
that you can be successful breeding snakes.
This is just the way
that I've always done it and had success,
and with colubrids I actually hibernate them,
and I've been telling you guys that we have revamped
and these guys are going down to sleep
probably next week, as a matter of fact
they were supposed to go into hibernation this week
but we had to do a little bit of repair
on the cooling system before they went down,
so next week these guys will go into hibernation.
Got a chance to take Chicken Strip out.
I absolutely love the fact that he's getting habituated
to handling now and you can actually take him out,
it's pretty awesome.
All colubrids hibernate at the temperatures
that we hibernate things in,
but of course things like this western hognose snake,
the corns, kings, and stuff like that,
they all go down to hibernation,
and what we'll do is we'll actually go
from 80, 82 degrees, which is where they're at right now
and we'll take 'em off of heat
and we'll take 'em down to about 70 degrees
for about a week before eventually
putting them down to about 55 degrees
and that's for three months.
But I have to tell you,
if you're gonna hibernate your snakes,
make sure to not feed them at full temperature,
you know, 80, 82 degrees with a 85 or 86 degree hotspot
for at least three weeks
so they can pass all of their food out
'cos you want them to be completely empty of food.
You have to remember, when these guys are hibernating,
they're not doing any digestion at all
so if there's any kind of matter in their stomach
it can rot and potentially kill 'em.
So you guys drove up all the way from
- Indianapolis.
- Indianapolis yeah, where you guys go to school, right?
- Yes.
- [Brian] Including this guy over here.
So that's awesome, you came up last night,
you were hanging out for a little bit
with the Reptarium, now doing the tour here,
and you wanted to check out the scalus,
what did you think?
- It feels unreal.
It's just crazy, like it's got the smooth bottom,
like with the scales, but the top is just,
it's almost velvety.
- [Brian] Exactly, that's a good description.
- It almost feels like a really slick rubber.
- [Brian] Yeah.
- But no, it feels really velvety, it's crazy.
- [Brian] It is, it's soft, right?
- Yeah. - [Brian] Yeah, it's crazy.
You might be asking yourself,
why do I have to hibernate at all?
What you have to remember
is when you're breeding any reptile,
or really almost any animal,
there are triggers, right,
and one of the triggers for colubrids
is cooling down or dormancy.
Once they go into a brumation type of period
and then come out, they'll typically get ready to breed.
That's when females develop follicles
and that's when males wanna breed 'em.
So literally for a three month period,
these guys are, again, down in the mid fifties,
with no light whatsoever and no heat whatsoever,
the only thing we do is we always check on
and make sure that they're okay
because if they start to stress out
we wanna pull 'em out.
Every now and then you'll have a snake
that just doesn't wanna go to sleep
and they'll continue to pace his cage.
Well, if you're not feeding it or anything like that
they'll start to lose weight,
so if we see that happening we'll pull it out,
we'll bring it out, we'll figure out what's going on.
Sometimes we can put 'em into hibernation later,
sometimes they never go into hibernation
and we just don't breed 'em that year.
Regardless, it's important to keep an eye on your animals
and we check 'em almost every single day
and then we change their water at least once a week
or whenever it's soiled for that matter,
which typically doesn't happen
'cos they really aren't having anything
in their bodies to soil the water if you get my drift,
but we always want to make sure
that they have fresh, clean water in hibernation.
- Hey, here we are.
- What's up?
- [Brian] No, what's going on, man?
- I'm getting inked, that's what's going on.
- [Brian] Holy crap, that is so awesome dude!
- Yeah, it's pretty sweet.
- [Brian] Dude, it looks even better than the stencil,
oh my gosh.
- It ain't even done yet, gonna be amazing.
- [Brian] Crushing it, T, holy moly dude.
How's it feel?
- Honestly, it feels like I expect,
like a needle poking ya.
- (laughs) Ooh doggy, this is such a beautiful
California king snake, this is a mosaic,
or what we used to call tire track,
but it's got that really wide stripe I absolutely love.
Regardless, after three months of hibernation,
we do kinda the reverse, right?
We bring 'em up, we put 'em at about 70 degrees
for about seven to 10 days,
and then we slowly turn the heat back on
to 80, 82 degrees, with maybe an 85 to 88 degree hotspot.
And then we'll start to feed 'em
really small meals at first,
increasing the food over the next two or three weeks.
After a couple weeks of feeding outta hibernation
the females will actually go into shed.
Typically the males will shed a little bit earlier,
because honestly, most males
when they're actually in shed won't breed,
so typically the way mother nature works
is the male sheds early and then that female
goes through what's called a post-hibernation shed.
That, again, is another trigger.
When you see that trigger, that's when you want
to put the males and females together,
right after she sheds,
for about a seven to 10 day window
she's gonna actually start to develop follicles.
That's when you copulate 'em or put 'em together to mate,
and then after mating the female can become gravid.
Colubrid snakes it happens pretty quick,
so literally they come out of hibernation,
they feed, they breed, and literally they get gravid
all within a matter of three to five weeks.
And then that female after going off her food,
and she looks completely full of eggs,
she'll actually go into what's called a pre-lay shed.
At the end of that shed we put an egg box in,
which is just damp sphagnum moss,
and basically we wait for eggs,
which typically happens seven to 10 days later.
Overall that may have oversimplified
the whole breeding of colubrids,
but actually that's kind of it
in a nutshell to be honest with ya.
But I can't stress enough
that you don't have to breed reptiles to enjoy reptiles.
You can keep them as pets, you don't have to hibernate.
If you're keeping a pet you don't have to breed 'em,
you don't have to do any of that.
It's just been amazing, and again,
it has afforded me so much in life
that I love the breeding hobby,
I'll never give it up no matter what happens in the future
I will always breed reptiles
because I absolutely love the process.
I love figuring it out, I love the egg hatching,
I love the babies, I love every part of it.
So there it is guys, a brief over summary
of what is going on when it comes to breeding reptiles.
I hope that you enjoyed it,
let me know in the comments what you think,
as for now we're gonna open up the Reptarium.
Hey guys, hey guys, welcome, come on in,
come on in, welcome guys, welcome.
Sorry for keeping you guys out here waiting.
Come on in, hey how are you man?
Hey, how are ya?
How's it going man, how are ya?
Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.
Just getting going, it's gonna be absolutely amazing.
Hi, welcome, how are you, excited?
Alright, good, we're gonna have a good night, huh?
Hi, how are you?
- We came from Kentucky to see you.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh, guys.
- You have got the biggest fan right here.
- How are you, what's your name?
- Alia.
- Hi Alia, it's good to meet you guys,
thank you guys so much.
- She screamed when we saw you outside.
- [Brian] Give me a hug.
(laughing)
Thank you so much. - Can I get a pic?
Oh my gosh, guys, you'll never guess what's going on.
Look at this, some more mangroves are hatching.
Little baby mangrove snakes, there's one little baby out,
we still have five eggs that haven't even pipped yet.
Oh my gosh, this is the last clutch of eggs for the year,
and I am so excited that they are finally hatching.
Mangroves are a rear-fang venomous snake
and it is incredible that we have some babies hatching.
I guess it's the perfect timing
when I'm talking about breeding snakes in this vlog.
Oh my god, I am so excited to see these monkeys!
Now, python breeding is really quite different
than colubrid breeding because you don't really go
into a hibernation or a brumation state,
you actually do what is called a cool down.
Now, with colubrids like I had mentioned,
you cool 'em down into brumation,
and when they come up they breed.
With pythons and boas, for the most part anyways,
you actually cool them down
and breed them during the cool down,
and then when you warm them up
they're kinda getting to the end
and start to become gravid.
So the first thing you do is go from
say an 85 degree ambient temperature
which we keep them at, and a 90 to 92 degree hotspot.
We actually drop those temperatures at night,
so daytime temperatures we keep the same
and then we drop at night
down to about an 82 to 83 degree hotspot,
and about a 76 to 70 degree cool spot.
Now, let me say a couple things,
because we do it this way
doesn't mean other people don't have success
doing it other ways, number one.
And number two, I hope I'm not boring you guys
with this vlog, every now and then I just like
to throw out stuff, because let's not spend almost 30 years
kinda trying to learn this trade,
and I'm just trying to pass on some information.
If you decide you wanna do this stuff,
whether it's for a hobby or business,
or whatever the case may be,
let me know in the comments if you guys enjoy it,
if you're getting something out of this,
and what else you maybe want me to tell you about things,
I'm happy to do that.
Once again at the Reptatium,
someone that said they weren't going to touch a snake.
(laughs)
And here we have now, how was that?
- It's a little scary.
- [Brian] A little scary?
But it's not bad, right?
- No, not bad.
- [Brian] You're doing really good, seriously.
- I think the part that scares me the most
is when they start wrapping and I can feel them wrapping.
- [Brian] Yeah, yeah, I understand.
You're safe, you're safe.
You're not gonna let anything happen to her.
- No.
- We're now, I don't know, several hours into this.
Getting close though, now.
- Yeah, we're definitely getting close man.
- [Brian] That is just so sick.
- And Imma tell you-
- [Brian] I am so jealous right now.
- Your artwork's sick as hell though.
- [Brian] I know, but I want that on my arm dude!
- I know dude, it's awesome. - Are you kidding me?
Unlike the colubrids,
that actually go off their food when they cool down,
we actually even increase the food a little bit
during the breeding season,
because once you start cooling 'em down
you wanna start putting males and females together
and the females need a lot of food.
I always say that there's calories in, production out,
so if the females will eat a ton,
feed 'em a ton, because the more you feed 'em,
within reason of course,
the better the chance they are of actually producing.
Take males like this pastel leopard clown,
which is an absolute ripper,
and we'll put them in females about five days a week
we usually leave them in for one to two days,
if we see a lock up we'll give 'em a day or two off
and then we put 'em in another female's cage.
And we'll usually cycle one male
through anywhere from three to five females,
and we breed them all through the cool down.
We typically cool down at the end of December,
and we'll go January, February and into March
before we start to warm up.
Absolutely banger night, I guess it's like eight o'clock
so still absolutely really busy,
really really crazy time but absolutely incredible.
We've got Nola out.
This is Nola's number one fan here.
- It is.
- [Brian] Definitely, definitely, I'm so happy you're here.
Lots of fun happening here.
During that time we're continuing to monitor
the females' follicle growth, so we have an ultrasound,
you probably don't, you can actually pelp for size,
if they feel like gumballs, marbles,
then maybe ping pong balls, stuff like that.
In a perfect world we want a female to get bred by a male
every about three weeks or so, or every ten millimeters.
So if they breed at 10 to 12 millimeters,
we want another breeding at 20 to 22, 30 to 32,
and they'll typically ovulate at about 45 millimeters.
I realize I'm probably boring some of you guys,
but I sometimes like to do vlogs like this,
so I hope you don't mind.
One of the things I really think that's super important
when you're breeding any snake or reptile
or for that matter probably anything, is behavior.
Keep an eye on the behavior of the animal.
If you see those little tells or those tricks
or those triggers that I talk about,
that's when you breed 'em.
Females will typically bowl wrap,
so they're actually cool seeking, right?
Because they wanna cool down so they wrap around that bowl
and they actually get a little cooler,
that helps the follicle grow.
When you see that type of stuff,
that behavioral type of stuff,
that is what you're really looking for.
So don't just do things without looking at the animals,
always let the animals tell you what they wanna do.
Now in all honesty I kinda simplified all of the breeding,
but I really wanna encourage you
if you wanna breed stuff for a hobby,
maybe make a few extra bucks,
or even maybe make it your career one day,
it really is truly amazing and the experience is incredible.
It looks like we are done, huh?
- Oh yeah.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh, Noah, that looks so incredible dude.
What do you think?
- I can't. It still hurts.
- [Brian] Does it?
- Oh my god, yeah.
- [Brian] That's a lot of work for one day, you know.
That's a lot of work.
- Yeah, and my first tattoo.
- [Brian] Oh my god, your first tattoo. (laughing)
- What was I thinking?
I know, it was worth it, it was worth it.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh, yeah.
Just think about it, a little bit of pain
for a lifetime of beauty.
Gonna be alright?
- I just need some pizza.
- [Brian] (laughing) Alright, I'll get you some pizza.
Another day in the books and it was an absolute crazy day,
so awesome here at the Reptarium,
hope you guys liked the kinda breeding thing I did,
and I am so jealous of Noah's tattoo.
And I may be getting Bella on my leg,
I'm actually pretty excited about it.
I am going to end the vlog,
and wish you guys an amazing day, evening,
whenever you happen to be watching.
As always, your support means the world to me,
and I truly love you so much.
Can you do me a couple favors before we get outta here?
Can you smash that like button,
turn those post notifications on
so you know when I upload a video,
make a comment because I love reading
about your beautiful faces, be kind to someone,
and I promise I will see you guys tomorrow.
(upbeat music)