when i said it was going to be a reptile road trip i meant it we checked out brian barczyk's
the reptarium so i'm just going to get off and say this right now i'm only going to be talking about
my experience here at the reptarium and speaking with him and his staff there i didn't check out
bhb we didn't have a whole lot of time to really do it so i'm only going to be talking about
the reptarium his reptile zoo and i'm just going to go ahead and say it it's pretty cool it really
is they for a reptile zoo he has a really nice selection and variety of reptiles and animals
and they all seem very well cared for it was actually really cool to see all of them and it's
every everywhere i walk around their animals look great they're well cared for the enclosures were
either clean or being cleaned and every minute of the time that i spent there stuff was being
worked on and it was really cool to see it and you know being around all these famous youtube
stars who are much more popular than me like purdita and then karma i think karma too because
i think uh i think the first karma passed away of old age or something like that um it's hard
for me to keep up i don't watch all the videos but it was still really cool to see all these really
cool animals that in all honesty there were even a couple that i had never worked with or handled in
person like this hundred flower rat snake which i've talked about in several other videos about
like the asian rat snakes and cool oddballs and things like that so it's really cool to play with
this brand new snake that i had never actually interacted with before and he was really chill
too i know a lot of the asian rat snakes can be a little high strung but these guys were this he
was pretty chill and it's not like he was cold or anything he was just a chill little uh rat snake
and it was really fun to actually play with one of my dream species so but with that being said and
yes we did also see drogo the sloth we didn't we didn't pay for the like the feedings or anything
like that um we did give uh i will be totally transparent and we did do a small private tour
just for half an hour fairly inexpensive and we got to get a little more hands-on and have
um a little bit more time with some of the more interesting species like i think ben and jerry
here the 200 cali king snake and some other really cool animals like perdita and things like that but
it was just really interesting to see um and i mean they had a lot other ones i think
you could have like private time with brian and noah and everybody else like that too but uh when
we were there actually brian was on his way out of town for it and actually i don't think it was for
his most recent trip down in florida i think it was for another one or something like that
um but the very small amount of time that we actually had to speak with brian was actually
really cool and i'll get to that in just a second um i wish that uh that could have shown off a
little bit more we just missed the crocodile monitor that we had that was kind of in honor
of a really great guy forest who we unfortunately lost a couple years ago now and the reptile
community really be missed uh but with that being said we like i said before they have an amazing
selection of reptiles i mean we've all i mean most people in the hobby and on youtube we kind
of follow bar check a little bit just to see what he's doing um and what new things he has things
to be talked about because you know like him or love him and i'm not really going to get too much
into that in this video either he definitely is a trendsetter of all things good or bad but you
know it all of like i said before at the reptarium in the actual reptile zoo everything looked really
cool and it was really fun to see um salt and pepper the albino and the melanistic alligators
um it's really cool uh his really cool hybrid iguana the blackheads which his supposedly his
blackheads are just about as uh happy and go lucky as my blackhead wink wink but it was just a really
cool interesting little experience with all of the fun little animals and like i said i've been to a
number of reptile zoos you know in washington and south dakota a couple ones here and there and i've
seen some pretty cool little private collections as well and his is i would say on par with
being the top of a specific reptile zoo everything looked great all the animals looked great
nothing looked sick or dirty or unhealthy or all the things that people like to throw his
way it looked really good and i know it's you know it's public facing or whatever may have you but
um i i brought it up a little bit before when we first got there we were kind of running behind
because you know it's been the non-stop road trip from uh here in colorado out to pennsylvania to
pick up our puppy and detroit was one of the last stops before we made it to the end so we're
running a little bit behind just because that's how road trips work so we only had a small amount
of time to actually talk with brian and the little bit of interaction i had with him is that he was a
genuinely nice guy he you know complimented the shirt that i was wearing that we absolutely threw
in one fingers crossed still throw it up in a in a video further down the road but just uh he was
he showed us uh some of his baby ball pythons that uh just hatched out i think he featured him in a
video too um it had absolutely no problems with us videoing uh videotaping or recording anything in
for both the private tour and during the public hours absolutely no problems at all he didn't
ask like what's her youtube channel he didn't question he didn't pry he didn't get defensive
he literally went hey it's really great nate nice to meet you like your shirt that's really
cool hey i really appreciate it yeah that's really cool hey i like you a lot you know be
feel free to record with everyone anything you want that's totally fine if you want to
talk to these guys you totally can they'll answer whatever questions they have for you
and that was it like there wasn't really a whole lot more that we really talked about but and i
mean i know it's you know it's a public-facing reptile zoo and it's a business and you know he
has to be nice but you could tell it was kind of the end of his day and he was tired but
he just seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the animals about meeting another person who was into
reptiles even though i'm sure he meets a hundred people a day at this point and all of the other
staff that were there too that we got to talk to um outside of our little private
time um just during the general populace they seem really cool interesting too they were
a couple of us got kind of chatty with some of the oddball species that we keep um the interesting
stories about the ones that they have there you know about the blackheads not being super fun
about the different 100 rat sinks that they've kept and just kind of like little stories about
some of these guys that may or may not have been shared on brian's channel i haven't like i said
i haven't watched every single video it's hard for me to keep up with that um i do my best to
watch as much reptile content as i can across the board to see what people have going on oh
sorry just really quick that albino kunis island rat snake just absolutely cool i love those guys
um sorry to break away from my little monologue here i just wanted to talk a little bit more
about these they're just really really cool um but again you know you've you've seen most of these
most of these animals before on his uh on his channel before so i feel like i don't really need
to sit there and talk about every single little one that we see on here but it was just kind of
really cool and then you know after and here we go the diddy and uh dixie kong of the rhino iguanas
they were really cool once again i really wish uh you can definitely tell that yeah they do have
a lot of interaction but they are very habituate habituated and used to handling and genuinely like
the interacting especially with like the green iguanas and the rhino iguanas like with mine i can
tell while i would like to you know give as much time as these guys clearly have interacting with
them you can tell that they are much more used to and accepting of people than even like mine
like with my two green iguanas and my rhino agrada only one really likes people and even then she can
be kind of moody about it as well here we go just this little mandarin rat snake i'm not sure how
often he was ever featured they didn't bring him out because he was in shed but it was really cool
to see another man of rat snake they're i feel like they're starting to get a little bit more
popular um again too and then you i had to show the bowlines python obviously we didn't take they
didn't take it out um got a little bit of stuck uh cypress mulch there at the bottom but they
they obviously didn't take the bowl and python out and i've actually had a chance to interact with
a couple bullets pythons in my time of messing with reptiles but his looked really nice too um
but you know outside of all the people sitting there we're just kind of you know chit chatting
and talking a little bit about reptiles about what they keep and what i keep and all like that too
once we got into the main public hour you know we still uh had to like reserve times to get
in for like ticketed entry because you know it's very popular they can only have so many people in
you know osha safety and all that stuff so when we came in and we were just watching around and
forgive me i don't i don't really want to show any of the kids because while the parents didn't have
any issues with it it just seemed a little off to me to be showing off kids faces like that so
you'll have to excuse the pixelation but we were just hanging out and i was talking to a lot of the
staff while they were talking to the other reptile uh to the other just guest there and a couple of
them thought i worked there too just because i and i'm sure a lot of you uh reptile people out there
too whenever you go to a zoo or something like that other people just like joe schmoes will hear
you talking and they just assume that you work there or that you're a zoologist or something
i don't know that happens to me a lot of the time and i'm assuming it happens to you guys too um but
it was really cool to sit there and them genuinely care and interact with both people answering
questions you know they have a lot of the same answers i do for a lot of the same questions and
then it was really fun to see the different feedings of the alligators of the tortoises
they see as we see here their big black throat they were seeing if he wanted to come out they
didn't force him out which is always really nice elvis the big water monitor was running around
i think that was dixie yeah bella didn't want to come out but dixie came out and i
think diddy did too for a little bit and they never forced any of the animals to come out
they would offer it maybe offer a little bit of a food treat reward and then they would come out
and then as you can see i'm not the one petting him he's just hanging out with some of the staff
and they just genuinely enjoy appear to enjoy that you know we don't know everything about reptiles
we're still learning a whole lot more about them every single day and it was really cool to just
see them interacting with that and again sorry for the pixelation the kid i just something feels kind
of sketchy to me you know without like everyone was knew that i was there recording it and yeah
obviously the foot spot we had to talk about the fish foot spa um and everyone knew that i
was recording and they were knew i was doing a youtube video and i spoke with some of them
but it just felt a little off to actually you know have the kids on camera without like
waivers or like express consent and stuff like that there was no issue with what we were doing
um both with brian and the staff as well as the people there but it just kind of felt awful again
sorry i'm going off a little bit tangential about that but here's a really cool that's the african
egg eating snake um very huffy and i'm sure he's talked about in his videos before they
don't actually have teeth so he's just really hissy and huffy um really cool uh jamaican
boa i absolutely love these they're so cool um hey uh reptile barn let me know when you guys
are finding up and then obviously i got to play with another very special uh youtube star veerty
they're uh their baby green anaconda she was really cool and chill uh nicer than some of the
ones i'm used to matilda bl dab or tortoise we i got a little bit a little bit more of the aldabra
taurus than anything because my partner really loves aldaba tortoises every time that we see
one she always has to run over and give it pets and scritches because that's what she loves to
do and they usually seem to enjoy it as well but matilda i think was just kind of done for the day
we kind of had the last few and then i think i can't remember the name of this the albino nile
monitor i think it's it's like chicken nugget or something like that i can't really remember what
his name was but he was really cool and like i said elvis was out roaming around um and you
know they just they just open it up and he just wanted to go for walks and he was just cruising
roaming around checking people out um every once in a while like someone had to like let go and
and make sure he wasn't getting up to anything um while they had like the big constrictors out
for the kids to play with and things like that it was just kind of really cool to see
you know just regular interaction that these animals clearly have on a day-to-day basis yep
see there we go there's me hanging out with the little with elvis and some of the staff we're
just talking about elvis getting up into things he likes to try to go into the turtle pond sometimes
um but yeah it was just kind of a really cool experience and like i said before kind of at
the beginning of this i didn't actually check out bhb where he does the breeding and have
the racks and everything like that um you know just the reptile zoo itself looked really good
i mean i know he's very transparent about the zoo and cleaning and everything like that and
i'm here now to say that you know we all have our opinions about people and you know
being being the most prominent figure on social media comes with a lot of scrutiny and criticism
no matter which way it goes but i can say this now personally firsthand when i went to check
out his place it looks good it really does it looks it's an amazing little place i know he's
planning on adding more and doing more expansions for like salt and pepper to get larger enclosures
because they're obviously they're alligators they're gonna get bigger um i know he's always
you know he's definitely come a long way with talks but like every single large snake has
large enclosures plenty of places to stretch and move and climb and perch and bask and i know like
i said before i know he's planning on doing more uh expansions i think he's building a second story
and adding like part aquarium too but i know some of these guys are also going to be moving up to
larger enclosures and stuff like that too so you know he's definitely learning taking initiative
from like the early snake bite stuff that you know and again in all honesty we all got into
reptiles a little bit because of him at least with us new people like me um that were always
interested in it but didn't realize how crazy the world and the hobby was outside of there but
and then obviously cupcake the boa because we have a cupcake taboa too because i just you know had
had to talk about that his cupcake didn't want to come out my cupcake doesn't normally ever want to
come out either but it's still just a really cool it's a really interesting really cool reptile zoo
and i think it's worth a trip out there if you're ever in the midwest it's i think i think it was
only like 10 or 12 or something to get in um and i think it's kind of worth it it was really cool
to see all the really cool interesting reptiles to see the habitats and if you're interested
in education and learning sitting there talking to just the general public with the staff about
reptiles and educating and things like that that might have been the best part of this whole trip
for me because you know there's not too many reptiles that i haven't seen at this point
but just seeing everyone kind of ooh and awe and ask questions and be genuinely interested and yeah
there's you know some of the cool oddities and things like that but i thought it was really cool
you guys should absolutely check it out hope you enjoyed the video and we'll check you next time