- A lot of people have asked like you know,
"What are you gonna do with her then?"
You know that I love spending time with my boy RJ.
(upbeat music)
Hey good morning everybody, and welcome to the Vlog.
I hope to start a new day that's absolutely incredible.
I wanted to start my day with Verde the Green Anaconda,
and talk a little bit about the future of this girl.
Of course, she is just a little baby.
I mean what, she's a year old.
She is gonna start to really explode
over the next 12 months or so,
but it's probably gonna take about five or six years
before she's 10 plus foot.
A lot of people have asked,
"What are you gonna do with her then?"
I cannot wait to design a new enclosure,
that goes somewhere here in the zoo,
that will be like half aquatic.
That's right, the one thing that I really been kind of
excited about is to add more water features.
You know when I went swimming with Lucy and Elvis,
it started to really make me think somehow
I've gotta redesign some of these enclosures,
so that there's a lot of water features
so they can get into it, and really enjoy.
Well anacondas love water.
So she's gonna need probably about a 50% water enclosure.
So we'll go ahead and move her to something
that's probably midsize like our cages
that are four-foot or six-foot,
and then eventually she'll go up to an eight
or even 10-foot cage.
Whether we redesign some stuff here at The Reptarium
or, you know, hey man, I've been talkin' about
opening up a second Reptarium in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
So maybe she'll go there.
I'm not a hundred percent sure yet.
We're cordless, let's have
an absolutely amazing day together.
You guys know I like to avoid drama
and all that other stuff,
but I read all your comments.
So there's been a few people that been commenting lately,
like why haven't you been showing us the gator tank.
I'm assuming you don't mean this gator tank.
But if you do, I'll show you that the gator tank
is looking really good.
Of course, we still have the two
normal baby alligators in here.
We're gonna get eight more, to get 10,
I've kind of told you about that.
And again, the way this tank works
is that there's a hotspot for basking.
There's a hotspot on the other side for basking.
That way when we do get a bunch a alligators,
or when they get a little bit bigger,
if they wanna crawl up, they can crawl up
and do some basking, and by the way,
I do find the little babies,
up here or up there kind often
which is kind of surprising to me.
So again, I don't think you guys
were talkin' about this alligator tank,
but if you were, there it is.
What I do think you guys were talking about
was Salt and Pepper's tank.
And the reason I haven't been showing it,
not that I'm embarrassed or anything,
but it's a quarantine area,
and it's kind of not the most visually amazing area.
And this is basically what it is.
This is the tank that we keep Salt and Pepper in.
You can see Salt and Pepper right over there.
It's just a really plain tank.
We have a few inches of water in it,
which is plenty of water.
And then we have a little spot that they climb up
if they want to with the hotspot.
We have a Exo Terra mercury vapor bulb
that actually has a filter on it,
because the albino's eyes sometimes
have a little bit of issue.
So we don't want it to have blinding eyes
or anything like that.
So basically what we're doin' is we're just
keeping it in a really plain type of setup like this,
keepin' the water nice and clean.
That way we can keep a real close eye on 'em
so we know that they're feeding and everything like that.
That's all it is.
So no drama people.
I'm not hiding anything from you guys.
I mean, I just, you know,
it just doesn't look that appealing.
I mean, I got these beautiful displays out there.
Of course, I'm not gonna be like oh look at this backroom
with this quarantine tank.
That's basically what it is.
Once they get a little bit bigger, I'll go ahead
and put 'em out on display in The Reptarium.
While we're at it, we might as well go ahead
and weigh Salt and Pepper.
Of course, you remember that Salt was 63 grams,
just like two days ago.
Let's see if she's put on anything.
Yep, it looks like 65, 66 grams, something like that.
So just in a couple of days she gained a couple,
two or three grams.
So she is definitely doin' good.
Let's check Pepper.
And Pepper was 113 grams.
Still 113 grams, so Pepper didn't change at all.
But Salt actually gained a few grams.
So that's really good.
I'm not worried about Pepper at all.
It's a chunker, so I'm sure over the next week or two,
it'll gain plenty of weight.
But I'm super-happy to see that Salt is growing.
Again, once it gets to about a hundred grams,
we'll probably put it on display out in The Reptarium.
I'm pretty excited about this animal here.
I actually showed you guys this little girl
when she was just a baby, about a year and a half ago.
And look at now, she's a full grown adult.
Of course, this is a pink-eyed leucistic Texas rat.
Now most of the leucistic Texas rats you see
will have the black eyes, but way back in the day,
pink-eyes were actually relatively common.
But now days they hardly ever are around.
I haven't seen more than a handful
of pink-eyed leucistic Texas rats
in probably the last five years or so.
So I'm really excited to get this
back into the breeding program,
and hopefully produce some here this next year.
Again, it's just awesome to see that it's already
an adult and going into hibernation
and hopefully it'll have babies here sometime next year.
Black Friday shipping is still continuing,
day three of shipping. You can see there's a lot of stuff.
Amazon, tree boas, milk snakes, Honduran, rainbow boas,
even some rough scaled sand boas,
even a nice well-started gargoyle gecko,
spotted pythons, all kinds of stuff.
Got pythons down here, all the boxes going.
Ah definitely still a lot of animals going out.
Again, thank you guys for making
the BHB Black Friday sale such a success.
Guys you know that I love spending time with my boy, RJ.
And one of the things that's really interesting
is now that The Reptarium is open,
he even comes out around people a lot more often.
So he's even getting more docile.
And my training's really been able to hone in
on certain things with him,
how I can trigger him to stop wiggling,
all kinds of stuff like that.
So it's been an absolute pleasure.
And speaking about pleasure, I got to tell you guys,
about some, a bunch of people have asked me like,
"When's the next merch coming out?"
Well guess what?
You guys have been asking for RJ merch
and I'll be totally honest with you.
I think it's my favorite merch ever.
So RJ, point up the corner right there.
Right there, right there.
That's right.
This merch is gonna be available.
I'm gonna put a link on the description.
It's only available as a flash sale for two weeks,
but you can get it in time for Christmas.
Not only can you get t-shirts, hoodies, long-sleeve shirts,
but this time, you can actually get an RJ mug.
And I think he looks absolutely amazing with
this RJ bling goin' on (laughs).
And indelibly, I love the saying, one arm, all the charm.
That's right, because RJ, he is such a charmer
and he's an incredible animal.
So if you wanna get some merch for yourself,
or someone else for Christmas, please go down
in the description click on that link
and get you some merch.
As for now, I'm just gonna spend a little time
with my baby here.
I absolutely love this guy so much.
And again, if you ever wanna come visit him
at The Reptarium, just check out the calendar
at thereptarium.com, and you'll get an opportunity,
because he typically shows up at least once every weekend.
So there it is guys, get your merch, please.
It's probably been too long since
I've updated you guys on Helen the no-eyed Ball python.
Well she's doing absolutely incredible.
Look at how chunky she is.
She's really kind of upped the food.
And, you know, for her age she is definitely small,
but you gotta remember the first six or seven months
of her life she was being assist fed.
So now that she's eating really well,
she's doing really well over here.
And I expect her to grow a tremendous amount.
And yes, people still see her all the time
and love her to death.
As a matter of fact, that's really funny,
'cause a lot of the kids'll come up to him and say,
"Oh my God, that boa python is sleeping.
"It's eyes are closed."
Well we all know that boa pythons don't have eyelids,
well not all of us, but they don't have eyelids.
And she was obviously born without eyes,
but it's a great way for me to then to start teaching
them things about animals.
Not only the fact that a disabled animal like this
can still thrive, but the fact that it's amazing animal.
One of the things I find truly bizarre about this animal
is the fact that she's always climbing on these ridges.
Almost all the time, I find her on this middle ridge here.
Sometimes even on this top ridge.
And I think to myself how does she figure that out?
I mean, I understand how she eats because she has the tongue
with the Jacobson's organ and she has all heat pits.
So she can identify kind of infrared, her prey,
or at least smell the prey.
But how did she map out that these ledges are there?
That is amazing to me.
I just think it's absolutely stunning.
It's a way I can teach people that even animals
without eyes can still thrive.
Helen is amazing.
She's upset with me.
- Go away.
(paper ripping).
- [Brian] Laurie, I'm just trying to help.
- No you're not.
- Yes I am. - You're making.
- Everything so much harder.
- [Brian] Laurie, I'm helping.
Am I helping?
- No. - Okay.
- You're kind of just talking. - [Brian] I know I am, I am.
Boy, you're working so hard, she's at work.
- [Laurie] Go away.
- She doesn't like to be bothered when she's packing.
She gets very stressful.
- [Brian] It's the most stressful
part of her day, is right there.
What can I do to help Laurie?
- Go away.
(man laughing)
- A bunch of people have asked me
about what's going on with the reptile prime enclosures.
This happens to be the exact leopard gecko enclosure
that we'll be selling here pretty soon.
And I love the fact, look at this bowfell.
That's where it always hangs out.
That's one of the things I love about
these naturalistic things that you find out things
that are just bizarre.
Of course, we have nice hide box right here,
a nice little water bowl that looks really cool,
but they use all kinds of the loops and crannies in here.
They're sometimes up here, up here, over here.
This one, like I said, always likes to hang out here.
And I am trying to launch these before Christmas.
Everything is done.
Universal rock site is a hundred percent done.
All we have to figure out is the last pricing
and the shipping on 'em and once that's done
we are a hundred percent ready to go.
So with any luck within the next week or so,
we will have the leopard geckos the Ball python one,
and all of the backdrops available too.
So if you have Exo Terra, a Zoo Med tank.
We will have a handful of backdrops
for each of those available.
Make great Christmas presents.
Not that I'm trying to sell you on things,
but I'm just trying to tell you, I'm trying to move forward
and I absolutely love this enclosure.
These guys are absolutely spectacular.
These are Anerythristic Brooks Kingsnakes.
Look at that animal right there.
But whoo, it's a feisty little monkey too.
I can't believe it.
Normally these guys are pretty chill,
but this one is reared up and whoo,
I don't want it to bite me in the face, that's for sure.
But look at how gorgeous that snake is right there.
And this is another breeder.
We had a huge group of Brooks Kingsnakes,
and when we ended up downsizing and moving here
we sold most of our Brooks off, so we have a handful
of new ones coming up this next year.
Some white-sided stuff, hypo stuff,
the peanut butter and jelly stuff.
And this Anerythristic is absolutely gorgeous.
One of the reasons I always say that,
I don't really like being called like
a reptile expert per se, is because
I'm always learning things.
And one of the things that really has kind of
blown me away about The Reptarium and after
almost 30 years of keeping reptiles,
you'd think this wouldn't be as big of a surprise,
but an animal like Crackle here has really taught me
something as well as the blood python,
and a bunch of other animals.
Things that are typically a little bit bitey,
whether they're food aggressive, defensive,
whatever it is, how quickly they can actually
get habituated to handling.
The blood python was that great example.
Again it came and I wasn't a hundred percent sure.
Now it's bulletproof.
You can take it out and throw it around anyone's neck,
and it just handles amazing.
Heck, literally a month ago, would bite you almost
every time you picked up.
It wasn't out of aggression or even defensive.
It was just a food thing.
So once you picked it up, it would crawl around
and then it would just bite your finger.
Of course, we documented Bruce getting his finger
eaten by this guy and stuff like that.
And now here, just a month later, with us handling,
handling, handling, it's completely fine.
We've had it out this last weekend.
Nobody got bit.
We're still being a little bit gentle with this one,
just to make sure, but I think within
the next couple of weeks,
this is gonna be another ambassador
that we can completely trust.
So again, it's like I said, I learn things all the time,
and I'm pretty amazed at how quickly these animals
can be really dependable when it comes to handling.
Oh good, I've got the whole clan here.
I was gonna ask you guys, you know, this is actually
somethin' that came up with Laurie before.
Would you guys ever buy someone a car for Christmas?
She said that sees it and she's like,
nobody buys people cars for Christmas.
Would you?
- I would never have the money to buy
someone a car for Christmas (laughs).
- Not me, I can't afford, no.
- [Brian] Laurie you would buy me a car, wouldn't you?
- I need to buy you a car, but now I would not.
(group laughing)
- My car is fine.
It's gonna last another five or six years.
Eric, what about you?
- It's a Chevy.
I've bought people cars Christmas for 'em, all the time.
- [Brian] What?
- Hobby Lobby.
(group laughs)
Comes in a little box.
(group laughs)
- That's not what the commercials.
The commercials, where they wake up
and they look out the door and there's a car
with a bow on it.
- It just like really makes me mad.
- It does. - Do you know what I mean?
- I don't know why, I don't know why.
- [Brian] Kelsey, would you do it?
- No way, I'd buy myself a car.
(group laughs)
- So okay, I'm gonna change up the question.
If you guys were rich, I mean like rich,
would you buy a car?
- Well if I have the money, yeah.
- [Brian] Ah, see there it go.
There's your person right there.
- See I don't think so, because honestly
if you're gonna buy a car, you're just gonna buy a car.
It's not gonna be a Christmas present.
- I would buy it. - I wouldn't.
- [Brian] If you had the money would you?
- Yeah, money is no object if someone needed it,
then definitely.
- [Brian] See Kelsey's nice.
- That's basically why people dislike you.
(talking over each other)
- No, I wouldn't buy you a car.
(group laughing)
- Oh and by the way, for those of you
that watched yesterday's Vlog,
you saw that I got bit in the finger,
and you could see that's all it was.
It bled quite a bit because that what snake bites do.
But I wanted to assure you that it was not a big deal.
And I also wanted to assure you how amazing Casper is.
I mean, you can see right here, Casper is just a puppy dog.
Nothing to be concerned about at all.
It was just a food thing.
It happens.
As a matter of fact, the majority of my snake bites
actually come from mistaken the food.
And what I basically means is that,
sometimes I use to short tongs.
Sometimes I don't use tongs at all.
And the snakes just kind of goes strike for the food,
and they miss the food and they hit my hand, or arm
or whatever the case may be.
It's not an aggressive snake.
It isn't even a defensive snake thing.
It's just a food thing.
You could see Casper is absolutely amazing.
So I don't want anyone to think that oh my God,
Casper got mean or bit Brian on purpose.
It was totally my fault.
And again, no big deal.
I just wanted to make sure you guys understood that.
(laughs)
Doggy, take a look at this albino high
white black and white California Kingsnake.
Wow, that is a gorgeous animal.
Oh my God, I absolutely love this to death.
This a new male that'll be breeding next year.
We're always trying to like upgrade and refine our stock.
This is definitely gonna make
an absolutely stunning breeder next year.
Here's another snake that I'm really excited
about bringing up a whole new group of,
and of course, it's a really simple snake.
It's just a Candy Cane Corn Snake.
And what Candy Cane's are is just an albino
or amelanistic corn snake, but just have
a lot of high white in 'em.
And it's something that we worked with years ago
and just stopped workin' with 'em for a while.
So were raising up some new animals
that are absolutely beautiful.
These guys aren't like super-expensive
or super-rare at all, but they're absolutely beautiful,
and I can't wait till we produce a bunch of 'em
here in the next year or two.
And what the heck, as I'm talkin' about corn snakes
that are comin' up in the next year or two,
take a look at this right here.
This is actually an Abbotts Okeetee corn snake.
Now the Okeetees are known for that heavy black
border around the saddles, but the Abbotts
Okeetees are really considered the best line of all.
And it's actually, a guy I've known for a long, long time,
named Lee Abbott, that actually just line bred
these animals to produce the absolute best ones.
We're raisin' up like six or eight of these guys,
and whoo doggy, they're all beautiful.
You know, what tell you what guys,
I think I'm gonna go ahead and end the Vlog.
And wish you guys an absolutely amazing day,
evening whenever you happen to be watching.
As always, I'm gonna tell you that your support
means the world to me.
And I truly love you guys too much
because it's the truth, I really do love you guys.
Can you do me a couple of favors before we get outta here?
Can you smash that like button, turn those post
notifications on so you can know when I upload a video.
Make a comment down below, because again I love readin'
about your beautiful faces.
Be kind to someone today and I promise
I will see you guys tomorrow.
(upbeat music)