- Piece of chicken.
Catheter down with this water.
(intense music)
Morning everybody and welcome to the vlog.
I've got my absolutely gorgeous emerald tree boa
that was over at the Reptarium, now it's actually
over at BHB because we took her off
because I had mentioned the other day
that we had some regurgitation issues with this.
And this is something that happens to,
in particular emerald tree boas,
but it can happen to a lot of snakes,
but for whatever reason, emerald tree boas
sometimes have a chronic regurge problem.
And once they regurge, sometimes they'll do it
over and over again and I had mentioned before
that I work with a handful of vets.
We have a local vet and then I have a vet in Texas
as well as one out in Virginia that I confer with
on all of my situations.
So after talking to our vet about what's going on
with the emerald tree boa, he actually prescribed
us some medication as well as some food to tube her.
So the thought process behind this is we'll actually tube
some Flagyl, it's kind of a liquid medicine
that helps kind of cure regurgitation issues
in all kinds of snakes, along with some water
for hydration and then some AD Science Diet,
which is again, a prescription only type of food
that you can actually tube to cats and dogs
and stuff like that to just kinda help with their weight.
So with any luck, if we do that maybe for a few weeks,
she'll start eating and keeping it down.
We'll absolutely do the best we possibly can
to bring her back, but I figured you know,
I bring you guys on the good, the bad, the ugly,
this is something that a lot of people
may not want to talk about,
but animals do go through issues.
I wanted to show you the process that we go through
to try to help animals like this emerald tree boa.
But I cannot stress enough, this is not something
that you should do on your own.
You should always talk with a vet.
I've been working with vets for 30 years now,
so a lot of times the vets will prescribe me things
and have me do the procedure without them
because it's just a lot easier than them coming on site
and doing it and so on like that.
So regardless, I've gotta go to the store,
get some supplies like a catheter and a syringe
so that I can actually mix up the mixture
and then ultimately tube this girl and hopefully,
start to see some improvement over the next few weeks.
So again, I'm off to the Family Farm in Fleet store
that I absolutely love, and while I'm there,
I'll probably pick up some hay for the tortoises.
I'll probably pick up another chick
so I can try to train feed Verdi again.
And usually they'll have the syringes and catheters
and stuff like that because they do the same process
to farm animals as well, so going there.
Hopefully I can get some supplies and I'm always lookin'
for an excuse to go hang out at that store
because I like it so much.
It's about a 15 or 20 minute drive and we'll be there.
(upbeat music)
Back to my favorite store so I need to get
a chick for Verdi, I need to get catheter, syringe
for tubing and I need to get hay for the tortoises.
And then I'll just look around
and see what else I wanna buy.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so looking for syringes, I actually have
a catheter tube, I was hoping I could find one
that would just go along with it so it would work out,
but there's a few different options here.
I'm not sure which one's gonna fit,
so I'm just gonna buy a bunch of different syringes
here and just hope that it works.
They have a really big one over here,
but that's far too big for what I need.
I don't need anything like that big.
I guess this'll work, we'll see.
All I need is a chick and then we are back to the shop.
(chirping)
And I know that I have said this a million times,
but I take no joy out of feeding any animals off
and I certainly think chicks are super cute,
so, some I don't like to do, but again,
Verdi has to eat, so it is the way it is.
So, got everything I needed, gonna pack up and head back
to the shop and hopefully this all works out.
(upbeat music)
All right, so again, didn't get exactly what I wanted
when it came the syringe and catheters,
but hopefully I can kinda make it rig up where it works,
so a little nervous about it because you don't want
anything to go wrong when you're tubing animals.
All right, back to the shop
and we'll get this thing figured out.
Lori and I just had like a two hour meeting
about the future of everything and I think that she may
actually be on board with the massage.
(Laura laughing)
I think she might be on board with the snake massage thing
and by the way, I added a new thing to the snake massage.
Let me know what you guys think in the comment.
You know those fish, those little flesh eating fish
that eat the little things on your feet?
I wanna put tanks in there with those fish
so that you can come in, not only get a snake massage,
but you can put your bare feet in the tanks
and have the fish eat your thing.
Let me know what you guys think, I think Lori--
- How many of you would actually do that?
- That's the other thing, let me know.
If you were gonna come to the Reptarium,
would you number one, do the fish thing
and number two, would you say if it was like,
a hundred and something dollars for a half hour
of a snake massage, where you lay down, snakes crawl
over you, it's suppose to be really therapeutic.
We watched a couple of videos.
It's suppose to lower blood pressure,
help out kinda stress and anxiety,
let me know if you guys would actually come to the Reptarium
and go into a private room, kinda you know,
with a real professional, get a snake massage or foot
and maybe that'll convince Lori for us to actually do it.
- Maybe. (laughing)
- Let me know what you guys think.
- Maybe not.
- We're making progress.
All right, so we have our apparatus all setup,
this is obviously just a syringe.
This is the catheter that we're gonna use
to actually tube the animal.
This is the actual prescription base food
that they use for actually tubing animals
that are a little bit having issues with nutrition.
So it's kinda, you can see it's kind of loose,
really easily tubed, but at the same time,
very high in nutrition and a bunch of things
that are gonna make him better.
And just for the record, the emerald tree boa
did eat the last time and kept it down.
And again, I wanna tell you, the vet are the one
that prescribed this, this is also liquid Flagyl
which Flagyl is kinda like a dewormer,
a deparasitizer or so on like that,
but it also helps kinda coat the stomach
and when they have this regurgitation issue,
often times Flagyl is a great option.
But again, prescription based, so I don't want you guys
running out there and do this on your own.
Now they told me I should do about 20 cc's of this food.
So I'm just gonna take a chunk of this, put it in there.
That's probably about 20 cc's, but when we suck it up
with this, we'll actually know the exact measurement.
I wanna do one cc of Flagyl,
so I'm just gonna take this like this.
I'm gonna tip it upside down.
I'm gonna pull out a little more than a cc here
so I can mix it in really good.
And again, you won't really overdose this Flagyl stuff
as long as you don't go too crazy with it.
So if you're a little bit over, it's not gonna hurt
the animal, you could probably do several times
the actual dose without hurting,
but I don't suggest doing that obviously.
And then ultimately, I'm just gonna mix
just a little bit of water in here,
just to make it a little bit easier
to actually get through the tube.
And that's about it, and then after that,
I'm just gonna stir this up, get it nice and mixed up.
Again, you want the Flagyl, you want the water
and you want that AD Science Diet to be all nice
and smooth, a nice little slurry like this.
It's perfect, you can see it all combines really well.
And as I'm mixing, I'm breaking down any of the chunks
'cause again, this has to go through the catheter, right?
So basically, I gonna just put it there.
Then I'm gonna suck up about 20 cc's of this slurry.
I'm gonna put this catheter back on like this
and obviously, there's a bunch of air in this catheter.
We don't want that so I'm just gonna squeeze this out
until the catheter actually is full of the slurry.
You can see a little water coming perfect like that.
And you can see, I'm just under 20 cc's,
which is completely fine.
So this is what's gonna go in there.
Again, it's gonna be the medicine of the Flagyl.
It's gonna be a little bit of nutrients
to keep her really happy and then of course,
we're gonna chase it with some water
to clean out all of this stuff.
So let's go get the tree boa
and then we'll go ahead and tube her.
So the biggest thing is obviously to be super gentle
with the animal, I mean especially tree boas and pythons.
They're very fragile, so I'm trying to hold very gently
and I'm just gonna put it right in that side.
You can see right there, it goes right down.
Make sure you don't get into the glottis,
which is the breathing tube.
You wanna make sure it's on the other side.
And then I'm just gonna gently put it
down her throat, very, very gently.
All right, so I'm just gonna do this,
again, you don't want to puncture anything.
You don't want to push it hard because that can be a problem
and you can see as it's actually bent,
we're just gonna try to straighten
it out and slowly do this.
I've seen vets do this for the last 20 plus years,
so this isn't like the first time I've ever seen it.
And I've actually assisted with vets right at my side.
So this is something I've had to do
on a number of occasions, especially with colubrids.
A lot of times they get into chronic regurgitation syndrome
as well, just from the stress
of breeding and so on like that.
Right when we have it about this far,
maybe just a little bit further, we want to get it down
to into the stomach region 'cause we don't want
it to be too far up where it can actually regurgitate
this slurry of medicine and food.
So basically what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna go ahead
and pump this in, like this, really slowly.
Just like that, I wanna go really slow,
so again, you don't wanna do it fast
'cause you could potentially rupture something.
It's gonna go really slow and also, the slower you go,
the further into that stomach it's gonna get.
Which means it's gonna be less likely to actually
regurgitate it 'cause we want all of the hydration to go
in there and all of the medication obviously.
And you could see, look at the size teeth
that this emerald tree boa has.
You definitely don't want to get bit.
I'm just gonna really gently, pop the syringe off.
I'm gonna suck up some water in here
so that I can flush it out and the hydration
will be very good for her too.
So I'm just gonna be able to flush all of that catheter
down with this water and the hydration's gonna help
her a tremendous amount too.
And then I'm just gonna very gently remove this tube.
Really slow, 'cause again, you don't want to have
any abrasions or anything like that.
It's okay girl, we're almost done girl.
All right, there you go.
There you go sweetheart.
We're almost there.
Okay there we go.
Okay there we go, so I'm gonna let her go really quick.
I'm gonna try to keep her a little bit up for me
because I don't want her to go down and throw up
anything of course and what we're gonna do,
we're gonna probably repeat this per my vet's advice
in about seven to 10 days and if need be,
we can continue to tube her the protein
with that AD Science Diet, but we won't have to medicate
her anymore and then also keep her really hydrated.
Okay, this first treatment done.
Hopefully this treatment will really kick her in
and we'll get her back in her cage, get her destressed.
And we'll keep a really close eye
on everything that happens.
Keep a real clean cage, so that way if we see
anything that looks weird on the bottom, we can identify it.
But so far, I think that went really well.
(upbeat music)
I guess while we're on special care for animals,
we're gonna go ahead and do another try
with the choo choo train effect on Verdi here.
She needs to switch over to rodents.
Again, like I said, I think between two and three times,
that usually that gets them switched over.
So I'm gonna go ahead and throw a chick in there
and see if she will go ahead and eat that.
And then choo choo train her rat, just like I did last time.
Okay guys, Verdi took the chick, that is exciting.
Last time it took her like an hour and a half
to finally take it, today she took it really quick.
I mean, she's really turned on to food.
As soon as she gets this chick done,
we'll do the choo choo train effect like we did last time
and hopefully she'll have a nice rat meal in her
and then we'll try a rat again next week.
And hopefully with the next few weeks,
she'll actually take rats without having
to choo choo train 'em and without having to feed her chicks
because you guys know I do not like feeding
live stuff to anything if I can avoid it.
And I especially don't like chicks 'cause they're so cute!
Regardless, I'm so happy that Verdi is eating
and she is gonna get big soon.
(upbeat music)
Right now, Verdi is actually eating the chick backwards
which is gonna make it a little bit more difficult for me
because she's gonna get to that head
and her mouth is gonna almost be closed.
So I'm a little bit concerned about whether
or not I'm gonna be able to do this.
You can see right there, she's got a really wide part
of the back part of the chick right now.
That's not a good position to choo choo train
what so ever, so this may or may not work out.
I'm gonna give it the best shot I can.
Okay, she's in a better position now,
so I think I've got a chance, but I hope
that she doesn't move much.
She's right down at the end there.
There she goes.
There you go, there you go.
I think we might of missed it guys.
And that's the bummer of this thing, missed it.
Completely missed it, crap!
I couldn't get it.
Darn it, man I am so bummed out man, dang it!
All that hard work waiting.
I just knew that the fact that she went in backwards
like that, there was a good chance I wasn't gonna be able
to get her because you want that mouth to be wide open
at the back end of a chick so that you can slip that rat
in there, she fought me, darn it!
I am so bummed out man.
It's still a decent meal, but still, it's not the meal
I was hoping for and it's not that scent of that rat
eating that I was hoping for.
Although she got a meal in her, it was a fail guys.
And this is just what it is, it's about being patient.
And hopefully, here in another week, she'll be ready
to eat again and I can do this again.
And hopefully I'll be successful.
Oh man, it's things like this that gets me so bummed out.
It was so close!
She just fought me the whole way
and I failed on this one guys.
That's it, Verdi doesn't get a rat this week
and I'm gonna hope that maybe with any luck,
maybe next week I can get her to do it.
Since things didn't go quite as expected
when it comes to Verdi, I figured
I would do some stuff with Elvis.
He is really getting his target training down.
As soon as he sees the ball, he knows that it's coming.
There you go bud.
See?
He knows, now I'll just switch out
and I'll give him a piece of chicken.
There you go bud, there you go buddy.
Way to go, way to go, way to go.
And he's totally got the ball thing down
to where he knows I'm gonna touch it.
And then I'm gonna hide the ball behind my back.
And I'm gonna give him a piece of chicken.
And this is really working well.
You know again, with Elvis, it just gives us the ability
to walk him around because watch,
he'll even follow the ball, watch.
Come on, now I'll hide the ball
and give him his reward, there you go buddy.
Way to go, awesome!
And you know how smart he is?
Take a look at that, he was just feeding,
now I'll go like this and I'll pet him right on the head.
He knows that I'm no longer food,
that's how smart this animal is.
He sees the ball, he knows it's food,
he smells the chicken, he knows to eat.
After we're done, no more chicken, no more ball,
and now he's completely tame as could be.
So it's just something I could do when I was bummed
about the Verdi thing, so why not do something
I know is gonna work well.
I had some chicken plus I love target training this guy.
He's absolutely amazing, Elvis, you did so good bud.
Way to go buddy, I love you.
I'm gonna go old school ultra on you guys right here
and wish you guys an amazing day.
Every now and then I just wanna tell you guys
how much you mean to me, I mean truly,
your support is incredible.
Like I always mention in the past, your support is
giving me the ability to do the things I am
and I have some really crazy wild plans
that I hope I can really share with you guys
over the next coming months.
I have this vision of this whole complex here,
that's gonna be amazing and I really do think
it's gonna happen and I can't wait to take
you guys along on that journey.
Not to mention a whole bunch of other stuff.
Regardless, I'm gonna end the vlog
and just wish you guys an absolutely amazing day.
Like I had mentioned, you guys are incredible
and you do mean the world to me.
Can you do me a couple of favors before we get out of here?
Smash that like button, turn those post notifications on.
Remember to comment down below because I really still love
reading about you're beautiful faces.
Be kind to someone and I promise I'll see you guys tomorrow.
(upbeat music)