- Hey, good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day's absolutely amazing.
Today I'm gonna be covering a topic
that I think that I normally wouldn't cover
but actually some people have asked me recently
including some mods for the Facebook group
that is in support of me.
Which of course is Reptile Keepers for Brian Barczyk.
I'll put a link in the description.
Really great support group.
If you have any questions,
they're usually really great about things, good people,
positive, so I love that.
And they asked how much does it cost
to feed everything at BHB and the Reptarium.
And, again I usually don't like to put monetary things
and things but I thought maybe you guys are curious
when you have a room full of snake
or rooms full of snakes
and a bunch of reptiles at the Reptarium.
So if you're curious how much it costs,
we're gonna go ahead and fill you in.
So let's go ahead and get started with baby snakes.
I mean, things like
this little, absolutely adorable coral snow corn snake.
Of course we hatch a lotta corn snakes,
king snakes, milk snakes.
(man babbling)
I absolutely love these ones.
These are ones that get super pink
when they get older but, you know, all these snakes need
to get fed, right?
I mean, every single snake in this rack,
all around here, all need food.
I mean, take a look at this scaleless corn snake
that has obviously been feeding pretty well.
This one's a little bit older than the coral snow
and it's getting some size to it.
Well, it doesn't get size unless you feed it, right?
So that means that every week, we have to feed
at least once a week, sometimes we even, some snakes,
we'll feed twice a week.
These Mexican black king snakes
are also getting big.
I mean, look at how amazing
that little monkey is right there.
Absolutely incredible.
But again, these guys almost all eat frozen thawed
and we go through about 1200 pinkies per week.
That's right, that's 1200 pinkies.
That adds up to over $300 a week just in pinkies.
Now, some of these baby snakes are a little bit smaller
like this greenish rat which, oh my gosh,
it's a feisty little monkey right here.
Greenish rats typically eat fuzzies instead of pinkies.
You can feed 'em a couple pinkies
but it's just better to kind of feed it fuzzies,
to be honest with you.
We'll go through about two to 300 fuzzies a week
along all this other stuff and, ooh,
look at that little dude.
And again, that's gonna cost us
another 100, 150 bucks a week
and that's just for the baby colubrids.
And then of course there's the raiser colubrids
that we're raising up.
You know, they have to get fed usually twice a week.
This happens to be a little squirrely
but beautiful orange thera.
I mean, look at how gorgeous that is.
This is what they would call either a variable kingsnake
or a nuevo leones but this is the orange version
or sometimes they call 'em even tangerine.
Absolutely incredible.
But, again, these guys don't just get fed once a week,
they get fed twice a week
and speaking about a spectacular animal,
take a look at this alterna or gray-banded kingsnake.
Now, the alterna are the ones
that are kinda like this thin black bands
and then there's somethin' that's called the Blair's phase
that have the wide red bands
that are absolutely incredibly.
But, again, the majority of these eat frozen fuzzies.
And we go through about 300 fuzzies a week feeding
these raiser snakes.
Here's another little fuzzy eater right here,
a high white black and white cow king.
Hoo, doggy, that thing is absolutely incredible.
And some of these guys are gettin' pretty big
so they need small mice too.
So we go through about 275 to 300 small mice.
Like, take for instance, somethin'
like this scaleless Texas rat
that has all the white in the sides.
I mean, that thing is gorgeous
but this one would eat a small mouse
so we go through about 275 to 300 mice a week
on these guys too.
The fuzzies cost us about 100 to $150
depending on how many we feed that week
and then the small mice, believe it or not,
will cost us about 150 to $200 per week.
Then, moving on to of course the adult colubrids.
When these guys are in full swing,
you do have to feed 'em twice a week,
really power feed 'em because again,
a lotta energy goes into breeding
so you have a lotta calories in
so that you get some calories out
and on a heavy week, we might feed as much as 1800 mice
off to the adult colubrids
like this Mexican black kingsnake.
I tell ya, that absolutely incredible
and of course we have some stuff
that actually will even need small rats
to be honest with ya.
But these checkered garter snakes here
are mouse eaters as well.
So these guys are little garbage disposal.
Each colubrid is gonna eat probably,
like two mice twice a week
so, like, four, sometimes even five mice a week
so that's a lotta food that comes in
and of course you know that a lotta poop comes out
on the other side, too.
But things like this will eat small rats as well
so about 1800 plus mice per week
on a heavy week and then we'll go through maybe 150
to 200 rats.
Now, the mice cost us about $900 a week, believe it or not.
And the rats are gonna cost us anywhere
from 250 to $300 a week.
And I do wanna kinda preference by the fact
that, you know, hey this is somethin' I've been doing
for a long time.
Yes, it's expensive to keep things like this
and maybe you guys have been wondering
or maybe you're even thinking one day,
like, hey I wanna have a big collection.
Now you guys are gonna know some of the upkeep costs
of actually feeding these things.
So you have to think about that,
whether you get one pet snake
or you're gonna get 100 snakes or whatever it is,
you have to start thinking
that it's gonna be kind of expensive
to keep these animals
and this video, hopefully, will kinda teach you guys
a little bit about the expenses
behind keeping a whole lot of animals.
(upbeat electronic music)
- Wait, me or him?
(men chuckling)
- Busy day today, you know.
- Busy day.
Good work.
We're in the colubrid room up here
and let's talk about feeding some mice off, okay?
So the adults here I actually feed twice a week
and these little guys I'll feed once a week.
We got through a lot, like, a ton of feeders.
Ton of 'em, ton of mice, ton of pinkies, fuzzies,
all of it.
The fun part is is goin' through,
hey this gets a mouse, this gets a fuzzy,
this gets a pinkie, gettin' my numbers all right
but, you know, with us comin' up to brumation here,
we gotta make sure these guys are nice and fat.
We know they're safely gonna go into brumation
without, you know, being too skinny.
What I'm doing now is I'm going through
and I'm feeding stuff double,
making sure everything's to weight
and we'll get 'em down there.
(upbeat electronic music)
- Leopard geckos certainly are a large part
of our weekly expenses around here
'cause we have a large colony of leopard geckos.
I've talked before
that we're probably gonna downsize a little bit.
This is really beautiful.
This is actually a tangerine tremper albino here.
Absolutely gorgeous.
But we have a ton of leopard geckos right now.
Again, reducing that colony a bit
just to be a little bit more manageable.
But, it definitely is crazy.
Our adult geckos alone go through a ton of mealworms.
Now, we feed mainly mealworms
but we do supplement with crickets when they're needed,
sometimes even cockroaches so adults take a lot of food.
And then of course there's the yearlings.
This little beauty here is incredible.
This is actually a bald snow kinda jungle-y looking animal.
Maybe a little hypo, I don't know,
maybe white and yellow.
Regardless, absolutely incredible.
Beautiful animal, no doubt about that
but, again, we have a ton of yearlings
that are either raisers for future breeders
or are still available on the site.
They all have to get fed every week too.
And let's not forget that we have a ton
of baby leopard geckos.
We produced several thousand of 'em this year
so there's a lotta baby leopard geckos and this one
is crazy cool lookin'.
I absolutely love it but all in all,
we go through 180,000 mealworms per week.
That's right, 180,000 per week.
And then we still go through four to 5000 crickets as well.
We supplement and then do be our roaches,
believe it or not, it's our largest weekly expense
when it comes to expenditures of food
and that's a whopping $2200 plus a week just in food
just for leopard geckos.
- Going through and feeding off some mealworms.
I don't really like mealworms that much.
I can't wait 'til we have less leopard geckos
so I don't have to deal with so many.
The way we do things here
is we feed all our leopard geckos once a week.
We put enough food in there
to last throughout the week though.
So we fill up their cups about half way
and they can go and eat whenever they want to.
We keep an eye on everything
so if anything needs extra food,
we go through and do crickets a couple times a week as well.
We're dealin' with lotsa bugs here.
Crickets, roaches, mealworms, all kinds of stuff.
- And then there's baby ball pythons.
I tell ya what.
It was a really good year for baby ball pythons.
Some incredible hatchlings.
Of course with the fact
that you're having incredible hatchlings means
that you gotta feed 'em obviously.
So, the more babies we produce, the more we have to feed.
This is unbelievable, just take a look
at that little monkey right there.
This is actually a banana super chocolate.
I'm hoping we'll still hit
that camo banana by the end of the year
but I love this animal to death.
And these guys will typically eat either fuzzy rats
or actual mice depending on the animal.
Sometimes they'll go right onto fuzzy rats,
sometimes you have to do mice for a little bit.
Regardless, this thing is gorgeous here.
This is a super extreme lemon blast banana.
I just love the way that extreme gene kinda interacts.
Looks really cool.
But each one of these animals has
to be fed every single week.
Oh, and I have to show you this one.
This is actually that purple-y snake that is
that super pastel black pastel pinstripe Cyprus ball python.
Regardless, Mary goes through and feeds all these animals,
again, fuzzy rats or mice.
Usually a combination of about 1000 a week
at our peak are being fed.
And that's a lotta money, I tell you what.
On an average week, we're probably spending somewhere
between 650 and $900 a week
just to feed the baby ball pythons.
Been a while since I've really showed off
some just normal big ball pythons
to be totally honest with you.
And of course the big ball pythons are amazing
but they do have to eat a lot, right?
I mean, in order to keep 'em healthy
and that's why we had a great production year
is because they ate a lot.
This is just a beautiful animal.
It's a black pastel puma ball python.
Unbelievable, absolutely incredible.
And they'll wanna eat, on a normal time,
at about one rat per week
but when they're really startin' to get beefed up,
she can eat two or three rats a week
or just even a piebald,
this is probably a 15, 1600 gram piebald female
that requires quite a bit of food
because the females have to be pretty healthy size
in order to actually produce.
This is a lavender het pied.
It's a recessive mutation that's heteros like this
for dreamsicles which is the pied lavenders.
Absolutely incredible.
This is the first year that this girl should probably go.
She's just gettin' to that size.
And then, you know, even males, somethin'
like this pastel leopard clown ball python right here,
absolutely ripper right here.
But it's gonna need small rats or something on that lines.
Now, all these animals need to get fed once a week
and again, we'll double and sometimes even triple feed 'em
especially at certain times of the year
but we're gonna go anywhere from 500
to maybe even 700 rats a week when we're at our peak.
And medium rats are pretty expensive.
They're usually a couple bucks a piece
and I did wanna say, you know,
I'm quoting you guys prices at wholesale.
Now, when you got a pet shop, you're gonna pay four,
five, six dollars for a medium rat.
I'm gonna pay a couple dollars.
Same thing with mice.
I'm gonna pay maybe 50 cents.
You're gonna pay up to two dollars, right.
So I'm givin' you the wholesale price in quantity, right?
But that being said, I mean, we could definitely have
up to 700 rats.
Could be 14, $1500 a week
just to feed the adult ball pythons.
And then we have all our other boas and pythons down here.
Like the cow reticulated python
which by the way now is named MooMoo
which I absolutely love.
And it was a star at the anniversary for the Reptarium.
It was the first time it was around people
which by the way, thank you all.
I mean, that was such a memorable experience.
So many people showed up.
So many people supported us.
I mean, I tell ya what, that will be a day,
I promise you, I will remember 'til the day I die.
Absolutely incredible so thank you for the people
that showed up and thank you for the people wanted
to come and wasn't able to come.
And I hope that you enjoyed the video.
Lemme know in the comments what you guys think
but regardless, down here,
we feed another couple hundred rats to snakes like MooMoo.
And I certainly don't show off my boas nearly enough.
I don't have a ton of 'em
but they're absolutely incredible.
This is a male sharp sun glow.
Unbelievable and he, too, eats a couple large rats a week.
Slim Jim of course is a normal reticulated python.
We're raising it up because we think that a normal retic
will be a great representation of the wild type.
You always see all the mutation retics
but you don't typically see normal retics
and they are absolutely incredible.
And it's about to graduate up to rabbits.
Yep, we still have Titan and a few other snakes down here
that eat rabbits as well, so we've got a couple hundred rats
that go down each week
and we have a bunch of rabbits as well.
And then of course we have all our stuff
like our Kenyan sand boas, our rough-scale sand boas
and of course the sunset Indian sand boas
and a bunch of other animals
like spotteds and childrens pythons that eat mice down here.
So, we've got rats, we've rabbits, we've got mice,
we've got small rats, all that other stuff.
All in all, it costs about 700 to $750
to feed all the other snakes that aren't adult
or baby ball pythons.
And that was just over at BHB.
Of course at the Reptarium, we have a wide variety
of animals that eat, I mean, take for instance,
we have our rabbit eaters like Sunrise here.
Snakes that eat rats like Steely,
the jungle carpet python which is absolutely amazing.
But again, lotta rabbit eaters
and a bunch of rat eaters as well.
And then there's a whole host of animals
like Peppa here, the western hognose snake,
that actually eat mice.
And then there's even snakes like Ben and Jerry
that of course eat fuzzy rats.
Yeah, I wish they ate Ben and Jerry's mice-cream
but the fact is they actually eat fuzzies
and we have to get it for 'em.
So we have a wide variety of snakes
that eat as big as rabbits
and can even eat rats, small rats, mice,
and even fuzzy mice.
And then of course all the lizards eat tons
of different things from meat to eggs
to veggies to, you know, roaches and bugs
and all kinds of stuff.
I mean it is a wide variety to always eat
and again with the lizards,
they're typically eating either every day
or at least every other day
so that's definitely a big expense.
And then of course the tortoises are like bottomless pits
when it comes to eating.
They eat so much produce.
Little Matilda here, or I should say big Matilda here,
believe it or not, she'll go through,
you know, five, six heads of lettuce a day,
yams, carrots, all kinds of squash,
all kinds of stuff.
It is truly incredible the amount of food
that these tortoises eat
but we absolutely love 'em to death.
All in all, honestly, at the Reptarium
when it comes to all the feeding,
it's about $1000 a week
just to keep the animals healthy and happy.
So, if you really add all that up,
I'll be totally honest with you,
it costs us about $7500 plus each week
to feed all the animals
so if you're thinking in the future
that you wanna do somethin' like that,
just be prepared.
It's not cheap to do it.
It definitely is crazy when you think about it
and again, I hate to even think about it financially
because we love our animals and we'll do anything,
no matter what the costs are, to keep our animals healthy
but you guys asked for it.
Now, the people that were curious,
you know how much it costs to keep BHB
and the Reptarium runnin'.
So there ya guys have it.
Again, I don't love to talk about money
but you guys wanted it and I gave it to you.
Let me know in the comments
if you don't mind and what you think about that.
Isn't it crazy?
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(chill electronic music)