- This is unbelievable.
(whooshing)
Just back from my trip to New Jersey.
What an absolutely incredible time and I tell you what.
Being back here I actually had a little footage
I wanted to share with you guys
and it kind of starts with black animals
or in this case a Mexican black king snake.
I don't know why there's just something about
these really shiny, glossy, black reptiles
that really get people excited.
Obviously, we have a handful of things
but the Mexican black kings are kind of
the most commonly bred animal
so this is the one that seems
to be the most popular in the pet trade.
Some of the Mexican black kings
are actually born with yellow freckles
and then as they get older they actually turn jet black
and some are actually born jet black right off the bat
but they typically get about four foot, right in that range
and are absolutely placid animals.
I typically get anywhere from like
six to 10 eggs from a female
and quite often she'll double clutch for me.
This girl is just starting to swell up with some eggs
so hopefully it'll be another good year of production.
With that said, I'm going to show you
some of the really cool black animals that I met
over at Steve from Leapin Leachies starting with this one.
I always love going to a collection
and seeing an animal I've never even seen before.
Didn't even know was around.
So what is this?
- This is diploglossus millepunctatus.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh.
- Um, said to respond to the call of the blue-footed booby.
- [Brian] Get out of here.
- When the blue-footed boobies come back to feed the babies
and they hear the noise, they all come running
and as the parents feed the fish spills all over
and they pick up the little pieces of fish.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh, and this girl hopefully grab it.
- Hopefully, yeah.
- [Brian] Hopefully grab it
and there's only a few of these in the entire country.
- Yeah, absolutely.
These were originally produced by Quetzal Dwyer
and I got these from him and had a pretty poor ratio
so I'm hoping to produce some.
Lots of males, not so many girls.
- I am literally blown away
and I'm in love with this animal.
Oh my gosh, I hope you produce.
This melanistic Blue Tongue skink
is the exact type of stink that got me interested
in blue tongues and started my obsession with them.
Way back about 12 years ago, I was in Australia.
My friend Johnny Weigel,
who actually produced the first melanistic,
handed me one of these guys and I was hooked ever since.
I mean literally.
I think is one of the coolest lizards on the planet.
I mean this is unbelievable
and again, this is what kind of got me
interested in blue tongues.
Prior to that I didn't really even have
that much interest in them
but once I saw this, I said, one day I have to have them.
There aren't that many legal ones in the country.
Thankfully, this one is and several others are
and people are starting to produce them.
So, here in the next, you know, several years
hopefully I'll have one
of these little monkeys in my collection.
Certainly a dream snake of mine right here.
Of course you guys know
that I'm producing the Blacktail Cribos is year.
Super excited about this.
Well, this is kind of the pinnacle of the Drymarchon
which is all the Cribos and Indigos,
of course, this is an Eastern Indigo snake.
I mean, wow.
I've often said the Mexican black kings
are that kind of cheap version of the Indigos.
I think that's why the Mexican black kings are so popular
is because people want Indigos
but they can't have because you do need to get permits.
They're endangered animals.
But I'm going to work on getting permits
so that I can get some of these for the zoo
because they are absolutely incredible.
They're inquisitive.
They're intelligent.
Just an absolutely amazing animal
and always a super pleasure to get a chance to handle them.
Another dream lizard.
I feel like I've said that a lot
while I've been visiting here.
Of course, these are sungazers.
Unbelievable animals.
I mean, again, you'll never see these.
I mean the only time I've actually seen sungazers
have been in a couple zoos
and when I've been over in Europe at a couple collections.
It's so cool that Steve has the opportunity
potentially produce these
because I guess males are very difficult to get ahold of
so he had a handful of females
but no male to breed.
He recently acquired a group that has a male in it.
So with any luck, he'll have the opportunity
to produce these, oh my gosh.
I'm just, I'm speechless.
This is awesome.
I'll tell you what, he has some incredible animals.
All in all, but the black ones are definitely really cool.
It was one of the coolest kind of reptile collections
I visited in a really long time.
I hope you guys enjoyed the Leachie information
that we shared, if not, I'll put a link in the description.
Definitely go check that one out.
But this happens to be another,
what will be, solid black snake.
This is actually a Lampropeltis triangulum gaigeae
or a black milk snake and what the deal is
with these, I've shared them with before,
is that they're born they almost look like Hondurans
and you might think like this thing looks
like it's just going into shed but the truth is it's not.
What it's doing is, it's morphing into its black color.
So these guys will start out almost like any other tri-color
with the red, black, and yellow
then as they get older they turn really black.
Now these guys are from like Costa Rica, Panama area
and the thing about these is they live
like 4,000 plus feet up in the air in the mountains
and a lot of people think that that black color
is to absorb as much sunlight as they possibly can
because it does get much cooler up there.
Of course, black will absorb the sun
and this is what maybe keeps these guys thermo-regulated.
It's a really good theory.
I think it certainly makes sense.
Regardless, these things turn jet black
just like the Mexican black kings
but these are the largest milk snake.
Getting up to six and a half, sometimes even seven foot.
So, these guys are just turning black.
In another handful of months,
they're gonna be beautiful animals.
I am so happy we have these back in our collection.
("9th Power" by Henyao)
One of the things I've been kind of thinking about doing,
I want your kind of advice on
if I should actually do this.
I wanted to do something about snake racks.
I know there's been a lot of buzz on the internet lately
about you know is it right to keep animals
in racks like this with the kind of
more minimalistic type of thing.
One of the things I do want to kind of address,
really quickly and then I'll tell you what my idea is,
is the fact that some people have said
like the animal would do better with the hide box
but you have to remember
that the housing is kind of a high box on its own.
The whole idea of the high box is if you have an open cage
and the animal needs to feel secure by going in it.
That's what a high box is used for.
In the case of this when you shut this cage
the whole cage kind of acts as a hide box
so the animal doesn't need it as much.
That being said, I get what you're saying
and I'm open to discussing it.
Absolutely.
And that's where my idea comes in.
Obviously, the vast majority of snake breeders
you know, 1,000s and 1,000s of people around the world
keep their snakes like this
when they're actually breeding them
and I've talked about the reasons for that.
In particular, the cost of the babies.
A lot of people that are really rising up
and saying how much they hate that people
are keeping stuff in snake racks
have actually bought animals from people
that do keep them in snake racks because, quite frankly,
the majority of animals that are sold
are being bred in snake racks
because that's how you keep the price down.
If you start to go with naturalistic cages,
the prices start to really increase on the offspring.
So, you just kind of keep that in mind.
That being said, what I've thought is, what if I got
like say two or three prominent snake breeders.
Maybe myself, Miguel, Kevin McCurley from NERD
and we got together and then maybe even got
a couple other people from the other side
and tried to have a really adult conversation
about are racks really bad for the animals?
What is bad about them?
What we can improve?
Because honestly, maybe if we get this group of people
together we can come up with a solution
that can kind of make both parties happy, right?
For the people that don't like the minimalistic setups
maybe we can figure a way to add a little bit more to it
that won't increase the cost of production.
Won't increase the cost of taking care of the animals.
I don't know what you guys think.
Number one, let me know in the comments
what you think about this.
Number two, let me know in the comments,
who you think those people should be
that we should get together.
Again, from an industry standpoint, you know,
Kevin, Miguel, myself would probably be perfect
but if you think someone else should,
I am all ears because I want the best people
to be involved in this kind of panel, so to speak.
Maybe we'll even do like a live stream
where you guys can ask your questions
and we can address them.
Let me know what your thoughts are.
'Cause I really, again want to keep this conversation going
and I want you guys to understand
why we keep things in snake racks
and I wanna understand what we can do
to make people that don't like that
feel better about what we do.
So, after visiting Steve at Leapin Leachies,
we're just taking a little bit of a look at Big Bertha here.
I mean-- - Oh yeah.
- [Brian] I mean, Noah was that crazy or what?
- Yeah, it was really crazy
and I just kind of wanted to see how big Big Bertha was
compared to their Big Bubba.
I thought she was like really, really big
but then we held Bubba and she's not that big.
- No, well she is definitely small.
Lori, you would have went crazy
because I know you love leachies.
I mean, literally he has 100s and 100s of leachies.
- Wow. - They're crazy.
All kinds of things.
So, basically now that I know a little bit more
about leachies I mean it's amazing how much I didn't know
not that I'm an expert by any standard,
but Steve taught us a lot.
Didn't he Noah? - Yeah, yeah.
- So, what she is is a GT which is a mainland
but she is just kind of a mixed breed, right?
So, she's not a locality specific animal.
The good news is the GT or mainland
is the largest of the leachies.
- She will get the biggest, okay.
- So, she should get really nice and big.
So, it's pretty cool.
But just kind of cool to see them now
that we've seen all the differences, right?
- Yeah, it is cool, it is cool.
I'm excited to see our little babies
that we got now grow up too
because they got the little pink speckles.
- [Brian] Exactly.
- And we saw some really cool leachies
that had the pink spots on the back.
Real big, so. - I know.
And the thing that's interesting Lori,
is that Steve had told us that if you feed a lot of insects
and stuff like that, they'll typically get
like longer but a little bit more slender
when you notice that you're feeding
a lot of like Pangea diet
that it's actually going to get a little more bulky.
It's kind of interesting.
Or at least that's his observation which is pretty cool.
I think Big Bertha is kind of like a longer, right?
She not real pudgy.
- Yeah, now that we came back here,
I noticed the same thing.
I was like, yeah she's a lot longer
and not as stout, I guess is the word.
- So now the question is, what are we gonna do?
We gonna get a bunch more leachies or what?
- Well, you know I've always wanted them.
Since the first time I saw them years ago.
So, yes.
Not a huge group but definitely would like to put together
a nice little group of them, for sure.
- Might as well take a look at Reptar the Brosse Island
which now I understand is an insular island
and just see what we see with him
now that we kind of know a little more about leachies.
This is one of our Brosse islands.
Very different and again,
because now that we've learned all that stuff,
we know that the insular islands stay a little bit smaller
than the main island. - Yeah.
- So this guy probably isn't going to get as big
but Steve did tell us that the Brosse Islands
do get relatively big but that is really pretty.
Look at all the pinks and stuff like that.
- I know, since we went to Steve's place Leapin Leachies,
kind of gave me more of an appreciation
for our leachies now. - Exactly.
And just the localities.
Now, we only have the one pure locality which are Brosse
which are the four that we just got and Reptar.
So, we have five of these guys
and then we have one of the GTs
that is kind of a mix breed or something like that.
Of course, Big Bertha.
But uh gosh, I tell you what,
like you said Noah, now that we're in it,
it's like I kind of look at him completely differently.
- Right.
- And with that being said, holy cow,
did he get big or what?
- I know. - Yeah.
- Yeah, just over the last couple months,
he really grew fast.
- I swear to gosh, he was like just
like that big only a month or so ago.
- (laughs) Yeah.
- Oh my gosh, that's so cool.
- Got some real cool pinks on him, too.
- Exactly.
And again this is a boy here.
So, we actually have four girls
from the Brosse Island coming up.
And Reptar the only male we have.
So, he should make some good ones
because he's a really pretty one.
And again, I'm gonna use a little gecko term,
he's not even fired up right now, right Noah?
- Yeah, fired up.
(laughing)
- Take a look at guys.
Lucy is literally starting to peel her skin.
This is her pre-lay shed.
So, literally that means that roughly about 30 days
from now she's gonna have her clutch of eggs
but it's pretty cool to literally catch her in the act
where she's just starting to peel.
Whoo doggie.
I tell you what, I'm excited.
I'm a little nervous but I am definitely excited.
I tell you what guys, I haven't slept in a few days
so I'm gonna go ahead end the vlog.
Wish you guys an amazing day.
Tell you that I love you.
Tell you to be kind to somebody
and I promise I'm gonna see you guys tomorrow.
("9th Power" by Henyao)