- Hey good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is incredible
or whenever you happen to be watching.
You know, every now and then,
turtles can actually get a little algae on their shell.
A little baby turtle are a little bit too small for that.
But of course Chopsticks,
the two-headed turtle is starting
to get a little bit kinda dirty looking.
So I'm gonna go ahead, get them out,
and give them a little bit of a brush
to make them look nice and beautiful.
Not to mention it'll be pretty cute.
(upbeat music)
And as you can see, just on his carapace
and stuff like that,
there's just a little algae,
making it look just a little bit dirty.
So what I'm gonna do is just kinda you know,
get a little bit wet
and give him a little bit of a scrubbing.
Just to make it look good.
Just a toothbrush with water.
You know, I'm not gonna do anything else other then that.
And just kinda clean up all the algae
and all these little growth plates right here,
just to make it look nice and shiny.
And of course the shell of a turtle,
they can feel right?
It's attached right to their spine,
so there's little nerve endings.
So it's kinda tickly probably to her right now,
or maybe even soothing.
A lot of times when you tickle a turtle,
it'll kinda do a little turtle dance, right?
So, just look at how much it shining up right now.
And just looking so much better.
These guys are so amazing, I love them to death.
And again, these guys are Chopsticks.
They are polycephaly, they're two headed turtles,
basically what happened is
when it was a zygote,
that single cell animal,
it was supposed to be twins, right?
And something went really amuck and really awry
and they joined and they turned into one body
with two heads.
Now, sometimes they can have more then four legs.
Sometimes they can have all kinds of issues.
But in this case, they're really kind of perfect.
I mean, there's one shell.
The shell is a little bit deformed, but not terrible at all.
Pretty good to be honest with you.
They seem to kind of have it
to where the left head controls these two feet
and the right head controls those two feet.
But over time,
they learn to work together, right?
It has one tail,
and every now and then,
you'll see them with two tails.
So other then the fact
that they have two heads, it kinda seems like one turtle,
which is cool.
But again, two heads, two brains,
two individual personalities.
And these guys both heads eat,
they love to eat shrimp in particular.
Really cool animals.
And now they look nice and shiny.
Every now and then, we actually get some hornworms
to feed all the animals.
Not something you wanna feed all the time
because they're really high in fat
and all kinds of other stuff.
But they're a really good treat every now and then.
And by the way,
I think these are the fastest growing organism
on the planet.
I mean literally,
these things will go from microscopic worms
to this size in like four days.
It doesn't even seem possible how it happens,
but nevertheless really good for kind of supplements
and treats.
So we're gonna offer the first one
to Beetlejuice.
He has never had a hornworm before.
And one hornworm is literally
like the equivalent of nutrients for like you know,
10 or 12 crickets.
So a couple of these is gonna be more then enough.
So let's go around
and give some treats to some of these beautiful lizards.
And again, I have no idea if Beetlejuice is even going
to take this cause he's never ever tried it before,
but he does seem to have some interest for sure.
Look at him look at it, look at him look at it.
Oh my gosh, he loved it.
The one thing you gotta watch out,
he just ran away in the back.
He's like I'm taking my spoils
and running away.
The thing you have
to really be concerned about with these guys is
that they are really plump with juice, right?
So sometimes when you feed them to a lizard,
they'll squirt.
As a matter of fact,
one time I was feeding Bella
and it squirted me right in the mouth
and in the eye.
It definitely didn't taste too good.
So what do you say we give Beetlejuice one more?
He seemed to definitely like it.
Come on.
Want another one?
Come on, all the way over here.
That's my boy.
There it is, oh my gosh.
How cute is that?
Absolutely adorable.
I mean, he is, he loves these.
This is going to be a really good training tool.
He liked them so much,
so we can probably use these as treats every now and then
to really work on his training.
That works out really well.
Let's just keep going.
I know Nova loves these,
cause we've given them before.
So I'm just going,
oh look at him,
he's just like ah.
Monster monster, oh.
There he goes.
Look at him.
And again,
if you ever have a lizard
that just needs a little bit of weight
to it, you know what I mean,
so it needs a little bit of size,
these hornworms are a great way to put some weight on.
But again, I cannot stress enough,
you don't wanna give too many of these guys,
because what happens is they'll start
to get overly fat.
It's not good for their health,
but every now and then,
a good supplement,
really good again for an animal
that's rebinding after laying eggs
or something like that
or maybe just went off of food for a while
and you want to beef it up,
it's a really good thing.
These guys love it
and you can tell,
it's like crack for lizards.
So we actually have Dr. Dickson and our vet for our zoo
and stuff like that.
She's just checking out Drogo
because tomorrow, we have some exciting news
to share with you hopefully.
So he's just getting a little bit of a checkup.
So nothing bad,
that's just all part of the process
that we're using to eventually get a chance
to be able to exhibit Drogo all the time.
So we're just going to spend some time
and have Dr. Dickson get acquainted with Drogo.
(upbeat music)
(animal yelps)
(upbeat music continues)
Little dilemma right now,
we actually let the door open
and let Drogo kind of just cruise around a little bit
and now, you guys remember,
he did spend a little time running around the zoo.
So he remembers it,
so now he's like I'm not coming out.
But we can't shut the door,
because he's obviously in the way
and we don't know what's going to happen.
So we'll just sit here and hopefully he decides
that he can't get out.
But he's definitely looking.
He's like, I can, come on.
He's definitely trying to find a way out,
but hopefully he will stay in the enclosure.
Oh, here he comes.
Oh, oh, oh.
Oh, he finally, he's gonna go the other way.
We might be safe on this one guys.
Maybe not.
- [Man 2] Ah, don't speak so soon bruh.
- [Man 1] Oh, here he comes.
- [Man 2] This is agility work right here.
- [Man 1] Oh no.
No Drogo.
What do we do?
- [Man 2] Well, that's kind of,
I'm gonna get rid of the blanket
because that we definitely will need regardless.
- [Man 3] Maybe he won't try to come out more?
- [Man 1] Oh he's trying to, Drogo.
Drogo, no.
You gotta stay in by me.
You can't come out.
There you go.
Get out, Drogo.
- [Man 2] He's coming for you, bruh.
- [Man 1] Drogo, you're silly.
You're being silly.
Stop it, Drogo, stop it.
- [Man 2] And it's effortless
that he's just hanging from his back legs right now.
He has one of his toes on there.
- Well that went good, the vet came out,
Drogo looks absolutely amazing.
Again, just one of those checkups
that have to happen
to make sure that he's good.
As well as if there's anything else going on at the zoo,
she can come out and help us out with.
Thankfully, everything's got a good bill of health right now
and things are going really well right now.
Ivy looks good, that's a great thing.
So all in all,
the vet visit went really well.
I'm gonna try Flapjack,
the black throated monitor,
see if he wants to get one.
Cause I think he'll be pretty cool.
Again, he's never had anything like this,
probably never even seen a blue thing.
So a lot of times the lizard will see
that bright color
and they're really excited.
Sometimes they get a little bit freaked out the first time,
so let's see what he does.
So here we go, let's see what he thinks.
What do you want bud, you want one?
You want to try it?
You want to try?
He seems interested,
but I don't know if he knows what to do with it.
He's like what is up with this?
He's very interested.
There he goes.
Oh my god, how cute is that?
He's gonna be shaking it around.
That's a nice big meal for him too,
that is unbelievably adorable.
Look at him.
I think he's in heaven.
I mean, this is gonna be good.
Again, that's gonna put a bunch of weight on him,
a bunch of nutrients into him.
So that is the cutest thing ever.
And that's a pretty big thing there.
I wonder if he's gonna be able to get it down.
Oh yeah.
Look at that.
As soon as he figured it out, he just crunched it down.
I just love it.
I mean, it's so cool.
Again, it's like giving treats to your lizard,
which makes me really happy.
Really trying to work on Sriracha here.
I mean it loves to come up to the glass
and see people, but it definitely is freaked out.
And I'm not expecting to be able to take him out
or something.
But I just wanna be able to have someone actually feed him.
So I figured maybe a hornworm
would actually spike his interest.
No.
I just can't seem to get him
to the point where he will actually trust me.
As soon as I go near him, he just gets freaked out.
I'm gonna try from a distance again.
See?
Just can't build that trust.
So the idea is hopefully he will actually come
to the glass and actually take something off tongs,
whether it's a banana, a hornworm,
whatever the case may be.
Right now, it's still not there.
So we're gonna have to continue to work on it.
Look at Bella, she's actually over here,
hiding out and stuff like that.
And she loves loves loves hornworms.
Like I said,
one time I fed her a hornworm
and it squirted me right in the eye and in the face.
So, I know that she loves them.
Come on baby, come on.
There ya go, oh.
Yeah, I like it that it's further away
and she's definitely squeezes.
So gross, I tell ya.
But she loves them.
We'll only give her a couple,
cause we don't want to overdo it with her.
But this is definitely a little treat for her.
Here you go baby.
Here you go Bella.
Oh yeah.
She's definitely, that's a good treat for her.
And again, every now and then it's really good, you know?
Rhino Iguanas, you only want about 3% of their diet
to be protein.
This is obviously heavy protein.
So again, something that we're gonna do very sparingly.
Probably haven't given her a hornworm in probably six months
to be totally honest with you.
So, I think she's pretty happy about it.
Back down here in the dungeon,
working on ball pythons.
And this is like I've said,
this is when it becomes as much art
as it is science.
I'm looking at the science behind what's going on.
I'm looking at follicle growth, I'm looking at feeding,
and I'm looking at copulation.
and then I'm making art decisions.
You know, the decisions of how I want to proceed, right?
I told you,
this is a very critical time of the early breeding season
and then there is another critical time at the end
of the breeding season
when it's imperative to get males and females
in at the right time.
So again,
going through and just making decisions more
on kind of the feel for what I think needs to get bred.
So this is when my brain starts to hurt a little bit
during the breeding season, I'm not gonna lie.
It's no longer just switching tags
and throwing males in.
Pretty much from here on out,
it's gonna be a thinking game.
And if I can think the best way to breed,
I'll have the best success.
So what do you say we jump in
and just start switching some animals around?
(upbeat music plays)
Not gonna lie with you guys,
it kinda makes my head hurt.
I mean there is so much to think about.
You know again, now I'm looking at specific females
that need to bred to specific males,
switching new males into groups
that weren't into groups before.
Really again,
this is when all those years
of experience hopefully works out.
So again, the next two three weeks are so critical.
Cause if I can get good copulations at the right time,
get food into those animals,
we're gonna see follicle growth explode over here
and then it kinda carries us
for the next two or three months
and at the end of that two or three months,
we have a real critical stage to breed animals
that are at the final stages,
just before ovulation.
So again, gonna take a little mental break
because that beat me up pretty good.
Destiny, the female Nosy Be Panther Chameleon
typically doesn't take food off of tongs.
But again, this might entice it.
The collar, the movement, and everything.
So let's just see what she'll do.
See if she has any interest.
Wanna try girl?
Nope, not gonna happen.
So you just keep trying.
Eventually she'll trust us
and she'll take it off of tongs.
I think Karma certainly will love this.
Go ahead.
Come on Karma.
Look at it right there.
He's like, oh he gave us a big yawn.
What was that about?
Come on Karma, you want?
Nope, I guess not.
So some have been a success today, others haven't.
I'm surprised cause Karma usually love hornworm.
But maybe just is full
because he just ate a bunch of roaches yesterday.
It's always cute
to do things with the two-headed turtle.
I mean, it is an absolutely amazing animal.
And just all the other stuff, I had a great day.
I hope that you guys enjoyed it.
Check up went good with Drogo, which is awesome.
That means that tomorrow, we have some pretty big news.
Stay tuned for that for sure.
If you enjoyed this video,
do me a favor.
There's a playlist of us building the reptarum.
If you're curious how that is,
you can watch a couple videos, I'd appreciate it.
Up on this side, you can actually subscribe
to my Podcast channel called Checking In.
Over here, please get us to three million.
We're getting pretty close.
Subscribe to this vlog channel,
turn your post notifications on.
Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember, be kind to someone.
And I promise, I'll see you tomorrow.